Horst in Translation ([email protected])
"Operation Zucker" or "Operation Sugar" is a German 95-minute film from 2012, so this one has its 5th anniversary this year. If you take a look at the people who were in charge of this film, you fill find a fairly experienced crew including director Rainer Kaufmann. And looking at how this really won a great deal of awards and was nominated for even more, then you'd think this was a quality film. It is not though and I guess these awards bodies did exactly what I wrote in the title of my review. A crucial mistake. The problem is not at all that this a small-screen film, the problem is that the execution in detail does no justice to the heavy subject that would have deserved a far better work to make an impact. The film on several occasions gets into low-quality terrain in terms of the writing. The acting is tolerable I guess, but I would not say Uhl is really awards-worthy while Berger is as usual sleepwalking his character through these almost 100 minutes while still attempting to try to convince us that there is any depth or character development to Dorothee.Some of the films weakest moments are when the women act as if they heard something suspicious (screams) that obviously weren't there to justify an immediate and extraordinary search in a way you'd see it in American films all the time and also executed way more convincingly all the time. This scene sure had lots of cringe to it. Another would be when randomly important documents go missing and Berger's character couldn't care less and this scene goes against completely everything we learned about her before that in terms of how careful and thorough she is. Another scene would be the typical German for-the-sake-of-it film ending with Uhl's character tied to a chair that actually was an attempt to get away from the unrealistic happy endings German films frequently have. But this really just stays the attempt and it is an unrealistic unhappy ending (well somewhat happy still as they weren't brave enough for 100% unhappy). And yeah well, I already mentioned Dorothee's messed-up character development earlier. In her very first scene, she is all busy, all professional and couldn't care less, but then next scene she is full of sympathy already even if she tries to hide it from Uhl's character. Like I said, the writing here is not even remotely a success and I thing it's pretty tragic to see a subject like child abuse and human trafficking get such a forgettable approach and story line. Don't watch and I cannot see the need for a sequel like they did recently. No surprise Berger and Kaufmann didn't return. I am sure Uhl justifies her return with how close the subject is to her heart blah blah. She should better care for the quality of the film and the subject being done justice than just the subject. Then again maybe the sequel is actually better than the first and I am being a bit unfair. We will see.
