weak and pointless

Rating: 2/10 (27 February 2014)

Many things have been said already, but some elements are more annoying than others. First: the story doesn't go anywhere. The characters do not evolve, by the way nor does the scenery. It is always winter, and just the subtitles tell you that, hey, now we are a year or two later. The scenario is full of holes. For example, the village got bombed in the end (or was it a town? From above it was a town, below it was a village...) because some bombers got the place to bomb wrong - as if the schedule were communicated to Germany before the attack. Bomb alarms tracked all possible ways of bombers, and there was no way that there would have been no alarm because the bombers got lost! The there are other errors - the boy swims plunges into the river to find a book deep underwater, that seconds before was happily floating on the water. It is winter - he plunges with all his clothes. The two kids then stroll happily home (no hurry), and the boys clothes are dry when he arrives at home, although his hair is still wet. Ouch... and there is no end to the errors. There are many other scenario errors, just annoying. Worst of all are the language tricks. The film painfully repeats a term that is meant to be insulting, a term sounding a bit German "Schweinmensch"... that simply did and does not exist. If you know a bit of German, this is like someone slapping you in the face every 5 minutes - you just can't concentrate on the little that is left of the qualities of this mediocre movie. I can't understand where it got its nominations from...