Arianna Moses
Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
"Meine Schwestern" or "My Sisters" or "Das Herz meiner Schwestern" (which means basically "The Heart of my Sisters") is a German 90.minute drama from 2013, so this one will have its 5th anniversary next year. The writer and director is Lars Kraume and this film here was actually the most recent big screen release he made before his possibly career-defining "Der Staat gegen Fritz Bauer". But back to this one here. His co-writer is Esther Bernstorff and it is high time to mention her now as I have seen quite a few films from her by now and they are always good, sometimes even great. Back to Kraume, this film we have here is evidence how it is also possible for a male director to give a good insight into a group of female characters as this one is really much more about the women and male characters are a bit of a rarity in here and even if they are part of the story, then this is really mostly because they are talked about and not because they are on screen.Anyway, this is the story of a women in her 30s who was born with a heart disease and she tells us right away at the very start of the film that she is lucky and happy she lived that long. So there is no suspense, no question if she will make it through the film alive. We find out right away she will die. But that's not a problem. A film can be just as sad if we know for sure compared to if we aren't sure and find out eventually that she will die. Triebel once again confirms she is among the best German actresses right now and Kunzendorf and Hagemeister give good performances too. The actors with less screen time are fine as well. Grossmann, Hosemann and Winkler are perhaps the most known names there. The film's biggest strength is perhaps that it did feel really authentic. All the characters seemed so normal with their flaws that this almost had a documentary feeling at times, probably even more so if you wouldn't know any of the actresses playing the core three. I think the film got slightly worse in the second half. It's tough to put a finger on it what the exact reason may be. Perhaps I had the impression in the first half that the film was really more about the characters and their lives and that the illness was there, but was not defining the film really. In the second half, it was for the most part, like the stair-climbing scene. But the very ending, the last 15 minutes perhaps were really good and touching again and made it easy for me to give the movie a thumbs-up eventually. I would not say that this is one of the best German movies of the 21st century or that it is a must-see by any means, but it still is a success. It's probably up to you to decide how you perceive this film. With the protagonist's approach that is almost uplifting or with the other people's approach that is fairly depressing. I'd say the latter is more accurate. I found it to be a very sad film at times. Thumbs-up overall and it is worth checking out. This film clearly shows how Kraume is up and ready for big things to happen as they did with his next film that may have had a more global/national impact being about the public figure Fritzh Bauer. This one here is more on the personal level, but it delivers convincingly from an entirely different perspective. Go see it.
