Successful new adaptation of the well-known classic by Nobel Prize winner Thomas Mann!
Directed by Detlev Buck and based on the script by Daniel Kehlmann, a clever version was created that focuses more on the dark side of the Belle Epoque around 1900. The charming young man Felix Krull (Jannis Niewöhner) is shown here more as an active part in an exploitation chain. At the Grand Hotel in Paris, Krull, who is hired as a lift boy, gets into all sorts of erotic entanglements, and not just because of his good looks. Rather, he is literally forced to do so by a superior head waiter (delightfully nasty: Nicholas Ofczarek), who has become an attic pimp. Rich hotel guests like the sophisticated Madame Houpfle (Maria Furtwängler) know how to exploit this for their private pleasures. A showpiece role for the power-conscious ex-wife of the German publisher Burda, who can give an exaggerated Belle Epoque version of herself here! Of course, Felix also knows how to use his own marketability profitably and brings his great love Zaza (Liv Lisa Fries) together with a rich marquis (David Kross)...
This is an excellent idea to spice up the well-known material for a new film in such a way that reference is made to the omnipresent marketability and prostitution in the Belle Epoque. That was the dark side of that time: dispossessed servants also had to be available for the erotic needs of the rich people. This was generally expected, but took place as secretly as possible. Felix in the film also has to learn this lesson. But his luck is that he can definitely take advantage of it.
The idea is good, the implementation is a little behind. It could all have been nastier, bolder and more erotic. The three main actors (Niewöhner, Fries, Kross) in particular have an unbridled passion for their roles. The script could have been a little spicier for this outstanding menage a trois! It probably seemed too daring for the makers; they probably didn't want to scare the teachers too much with their advanced German courses.
However, the result is a new film that is worth seeing and uses a clever approach that allows a new look at the time around 1900.
