Thoughts on Ludwig II.
The movie, people, the movie! *tons of historians are putting down their pitchforks*
Pweh!
I ... didn't really like it, which is sad as hell because I'd have loved to stan really hard for this thing - I mean it's colorful, it's abundant and lush, it has like ALL the actors ever (seriously, who wasn't in that) and the shots should do wonders for Bavarian tourism - apart from one or twelve really torturous blue screens. (Really guys? You couldn't afford to maybe pay your intern some twenty bucks more to smooth out the lines around Tambrea's head at least a little bit)?
Speaking of Tambrea: I knew I had seen his face somewhere before - and yes I am dying in my seat right now (Eberhard/Luka for life!)
He is undoubtedly the cutest thing to ever grace the screen (well, apart from the Romeo of the Italian version of the musical "Romeo and Juliet" which I have been fawning over for five days now - I MEAN LOOK AT HIM. I WANNA THROW MILK AND COOKIES IN HIS GENERAL DIRECTION - and btw, ayawinner ,Mercutio is half-naked in that video for reasons which elude me but I honestly don't care. Also: he is touching Romeo and pushing him away from Julia and... OKAY YEAH THIS WILL GET ITS OWN ENTRY I'M SORRY!) and I loved his performance - he was powerful, very physical and convincing in his inner turmoil (and yes he looks good while kissing boys, sue me xD).
I did like Edgar Selge as Wagner - he obviously had fun in that role and did everything he could with his lines of dialogue and Hanna Herzsprung as Sissi was nice too (although a bit too sane perhaps? I mean it's not like she and Ludwig had that much of a healthy relationship...) .
My biggest problem with the film though is its absolute disregard for any kind of coherent story telling. Like at all. The last half hour especially was just a big mess of scenes that served no other purpose than driving the plot from place A to place B - which is of course everything a scene should be ; ) - but they did almost nothing for the characters or delivered background information (which people who are not up to date with 19th century Bavarian politics would have probably been grateful for xD I mean I know a little bit about the whole ordeal but my poor mom was completely lost at times when my mumbled explanations weren't enough anymore xD). It all felt very ... well "Drama Class 101"-ish to me: "Oh he needs to disregard Wagner and be totally mean to him" - scene where exactly that happens
"Oh he should also probably get rid of Hornig while we are it" - scene where they have their fall-out over marble.
" We should also show that politics is totes hard without Ludwig" - a thirty second scene with Johann von Lutz which is supposed to make us believe that 14 years have passed in similar fashion (silence from the king/ begging from Lutz).
I AM SORRY GUYS, BUT THIS IS NOT WORKING AT ALL!!!! They have this tragic suicide at the end of their story - and they do almost nothing to build up to it! They could have glorified it, condemned it, shown every version or none at all - but not this half assed mess of nothingness at the end of the movie which threatens to drown the audience in boring medium shots and without any emotion whatsoever.
Yes, I get that you were trying to go for the documentary-angle with this - but wouldn't it have made more sense to actually make a documentary then (I'm pretty sure ZDF would have given you free reign over the 'acting scenes' in between historians monologueing at a camera)? The information subtitles would have looked better too, with their shiny font and their "Die Deutschen"-realness...
Seriously, not even the documentary is working in their favor - everything and their mom's castle is shown solely from Ludwig's perspective (perhaps two or three scenes weren't: the one with Lorenz and the Lohengrin-opera-singer-what-his-name and of course the whole plot to have Ludwig declared insane) and if they wanted to make the world's most egoistical biopic, then go for it, this could be immensely funny - BUT IT AIN'T WORKING FOR A FEATURE LENGTH MOVIE. Yes, we kinda guessed that Ludwig is your protagonist but it would be helpful to get some sort of emotion/statement from other characters about him - like why did his servants stay with him so long? Why did von Lutz crack after 14 years and not after ten? Why does the Bavarian populace consist of like twenty people only? SHOW MEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!
God damn, I'm angry - the movie feels so weird when watching it - most of the camera work is wonderful, the costume porn makes my mouth water and the props department outdid themselves - but the rest is bland and none of the scenes leave a big impact, although Tambrea is doing his hardest and yes the scenes in the mental asylum are heartbreaking thanks to Schipper BUT STILL! They had so much potential and they threw it into the wind to show scenery porn of Neuschwanstein.
Yes, the castle is nice.
Yes, Bavaria tourism department probably paid for half of this movie.
BUT WHY WOULD YOU EVEN CALL IT LUDWIG THEN AND NOT "Neuschwanstein and those other castles we have here". DAAAAAAMN.