Fairy tale films on TV: A frog to fall in love with

When pity goes hand in hand with carelessness, the other side has a good hand.

And if, after so many fairy tales, you are still willing to take this load on your own shoulders, for the sake of an old woman who asks for help carrying a bundle of wood in the forest, what always happens to you happens: The bundle is heavier than thought, the way further, and of course the witch hops on top of the wood, does not let herself be shaken off and drives her helpful victim with the switch.

Tilman Spreckelsen

Editor in the Feuilleton.

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Much more than this scene is not left of the rather apocryphal Grimm fairy tale "The Goose Princess", which is now one of two new contributions to the series "6 at a stroke", in which the first year after year adapts fairy tales at Christmas time, museum villages , palaces and castles from the vicinity of the respective ARD station and often forgets about the decor which story is actually being told.

For "The Goose Princess" this means: Because the king's son disappeared years ago, his traumatized father forbids anyone in his kingdom to show happiness.

This is bad news for Princess Polly (Mina Christ), who loves to tell thoroughly stale jokes, pull faces, or do cartwheels for the amusement of those around her.

She especially likes to pull out her whoopee cushion and likes to accompany her performances with sentences like “Terrible!

That sounds like brussels sprouts!” When she fills in the artificial breaks in the funeral serenade at a public commemoration for the missing brother with appropriate noises, the king chases her from the court – it is not entirely impossible that one or the other will welcome the disappearance of the nuisance.

In the parallel plot, an adventurer with the speaking name "Leif" is introduced, who is supposed to marry the pretty daughter of the emperor in the Far East, but does not want to give up his freedom and flees until he meets the old woman with her bundle in the said forest.

In the meantime, Polly has also ended up in her care, who lovingly takes care of the geese and treats the arrogant adventurer and his companion Hagen with mild mockery, until Leif and the rejected princess recognize each other by a night song: the song that Polly wears on her lips , Leif once sang to her when he was still her brother and lived at their father's court.

This is moderately original, and measured against the comprehensive freedom of design that promises the decision not to bother too much with the fairy tale plot, not very imaginative either.

In any case, the conflict between paralyzing grief and the will not to submit to it could carry on and be implemented more convincingly.

But even excellent actors like Leslie Malton as the old woman, Johann von Bülow as the king and, above all, Mina Christ as the princess cannot resist a screenplay that puts a bunch of paper mnemonics in their mouths: “Only those who pause can discover what is real is important," we learn, "You can only set yourself free," and so on.

In the end Polly will be queen

The film was created "based on motifs" from the Grimm fairy tale, its creators assure themselves, and "Zitterinchen", the second new contribution to the series, is also based solely on "motifs by Ludwig Bechstein".

What remains of the original is the story of a mistaken identity, in which a prince falls in love with the picture of a girl he has never seen and wants to marry her.

However, a fraudster is foisted on him.

The true bride laments three times at night by his bed, the third time he hears it and realizes his mistake, which saves the bride from the fate of becoming a mermaid.

In the end, the dog Zitterinchen, companion of the true bride, turns out to be a previously enchanted and now redeemed girl.

In the film, this becomes a four-corner story between the prince who suffers from wanderlust, the self-taught painter Alma, her pretty sister Christine and the fake bride Irm, and it's the stylistically confident use of charging moments that give "Zitterinchen" its class.

The set designers must have enjoyed sending Irm and her mother in front of the camera in a shrill way to make the contrast against the nature child Christine visible, and the screenplay keeps up bravely.

All of this pales in comparison to the competition that ZDF is putting into the race with the ninety-minute fairy tale feature film "The Fairy Tale of the Frog and the Golden Ball".

For the fourth time, cameraman Ngo The Chau is directing such a fairy tale film, and once again the template becomes the starting point for an independent work.

"You know the story," it says at the beginning, which means nothing other than: If you think you know the story, then brace yourself.

A kind of prelude to the "Frog King" is told here for two thirds of the film, in which two brothers, professional thieves, break into a castle, are caught stealing a golden ball and are banished to a dark forest, one of them even becoming a frog .

Pieces from the fairy tale are regrouped, the ensemble plays that it is a pleasure to watch, especially Lea Drinda as the fidgety forest witch, and if Ngo The Chau could at some point say goodbye to the idea that in the finale of a fantasy fairy tale you absolutely have to be optical and acoustic bang on the drum again, then it could become a beacon of the German fairy tale television film.

Zitterinchen

is on December 25 at 2:40 p.m. on the first,

on December 26 at 2:40 p.m.

is shown on ZDF on Christmas Eve at 4.30 p.m.