The Great Race (DVD)
Genre: Comedy, Family Film
Ireland, racing, farm, Soapbox
Some children nowadays spend more time watching TV and computer than outside in nature. Not so in the eleven-year old Mary André F. Nebe’s debut film. He lets his protagonist as wild ride on the Irish country – in a home-made soap box and wants to incite children to think that there is something else than Playstation and the Internet. Mary (Niamh McGirr), red-haired, pale, freckles, lives on a lonely farm. For chickens and pigs, it has as little interest as their mother (Susan Lynch), who had a more glamorous life than that presented to a farmer’s wife. Mary’s father (Colm Meaney) is a farmer as he stands in the book: coarse, taciturn and full devotion to his job, which pays very little money and has earned him only a lot of debt. So frustrated as both parents, it’s no wonder that they fight only the mother and seeks her fortune with one another. , But it should go in the film only in passing to marital problems and the miserable situation of the Irish peasants. Rather, The Great Race a children’s film through the eyes of eleven year old Mary is told. That fact alone, everything is much more colorful, more poetic and less problematic. And as the title suggests, is the focus of a race, more a soapbox race, Mary is determined to win against a dozen boys. Alone the fact that a girl wants to join as is extraordinary and even then, Mary, who is teased by everyone. Their initial conditions are far from good: Your soap box is old and rickety, money for new wheels is missing and her father is against the company. But Mary is courageous, ambitious and convinced of their mission. The film and its end are as predictable as the Amen in church. And there are no more common formula, in the cinema than the weak to lay so many hurdles in the way and let him win in the end anyway. Nevertheless, one goes to the heart of the story. Niamh McGirr is especially touching spectacle. Your Mary is her first role on camera, before they have played in some theaters plcs. It is so convincing and carefree, just an ideal candidate. A bit of you wonder wonder why the director André F. Nebe Born Berlin, 1973, his first feature film with children and animals and also rotates with English actors in rainy Ireland. From just under four weeks of shooting and it has rained two of them continuously. How well that has previously Nebe spent a small fortune for rain gear and outdoor clothing. But he had the feeling of doing something meaningful, if he managed to tell later in the movie theater children a fascinating history – and he has succeeded. (Katrin Knauth)
Title: The Great Race (DVD) Original Title: The Race Country of production: , Germany, Ireland Year of Production: 2009 Length: 83 (Min.) Published at: € Video format: 16:9 tone / language: Dolby Digital 5.1, German, DD 2.0 English EAN: 4009750257548 Extras: None