The Miracle of Bern (2003)

Very best movie i ever watch

Simply A Masterpiece

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

I think the film is so-so, on the one hand we have an inconvincing casting, some scene are violent, the plot is dull. On the other hand we have great sound design and original story. When i went watching the film, i have sleep in the middle of the film on the shoulder of my friend next to me. However, if you like the football, this film is for you, but for me it's not woth for my money. Honorine.

I had initially expected to find mainly German comments and felt positively surprised that a lot people commented positively also on the things around culminating in positive reviews about Worldcup in Germany 2006. Why do i like the movie ? Whenever you ask older people about what defined "West Germany" after the lost war, there are basically three things mentioned: The Currency Reform to "Deutschmark", the Return of the 10.000 POW from Russia and the Miracle of Bern as the leading one. And the movie, as good as i can imagine it, captured it very well if you hear comments from the same people watching. Yes, there are no mountains between Essen and Bern and quite sure no Car Transport Trains between Suisse and Germany in 54, but who cares ? But they did poke some fun about women's equal (baby naming) rights and the real copyrights for the German National Coaches high quality punch lines and they had the final about right. I can always enjoy it !

I have no doubt that the 1954 World Cup win for Germany was important to a nation trying to move out of the shadow of Nazism and the deserved defeat they suffered in World War II. This movie does a fairly good job of conveying that emotion, and of depicting life in a poor town less than a decade after Hitler. I also liked the music, which was supportive without being overly dramatic or emotional. Much of the acting was also good.I can't say the same for the script or plot, which were predictable (I don't mean the historic truth of the World Cup, of course, but the fictional family developments), highly sentimental, and annoyingly manipulative. The father was a cardboard character whose actions I didn't believe for a second, and what he did to provide a dinner for his wife was totally implausible. If the movie was aimed at eight-year-olds who need something completely lacking in subtlety, so that every plot point is as obvious as a road sign, then it succeeded. Adults, though, will find it as thin as onionskin.The trip by father and son to Bern for the final match cheated by having them drive through gorgeous Alpine scenery, when a real trip would not have been anything like so beautiful. If filmmakers will cheat on something like that to get an easy reaction from the audience, they'll cheat on everything.

I just watched "Das Wunder von Bern" and I must admit it is really a good film, not only for football fans (for you Americans: we Europeans say football for soccer). The film is not just a sports drama but deals more with the atmosphere in post war Germany and with the problems and aspirations the people had during that period and what the winning of the world championship by the German national football team meant for the regular people.Actually this atmosphere is covered excellently. The film shows that the people were still recovering from WW2. There are heaps of debris in the streets from houses destroyed during air raids and many men are still kept as POWs so that the women have to take care for the family. The children play football with a makeshift ball, and most people don't seem to have much money. Everything is shown in subdued colors which really contribute to this mood. Although the story is set in Essen, a city in the main industrial and mining region of Germany, it could have happened everywhere in Germany. The colors only change during the scenes in Switzerland, where the world championship took place. In fact those scenes are shot in bright and friendly colors. And also the settings are quite different from those in Essen: whereas the location in Essen consists of small apartment buildings, narrow streets and those aforementioned subdued colors, everything in Switzerland seems to be posh and spacious.Even though the actors are not exactly great names in German cinema, they are quite good. As far as I know the actors who play the members of the German national football team were cast not only for their acting skills but also for their ability to play football. Thanks to that aspect the football scenes are quite convincing (although the spectators in the football stadium in Bern look really fake).What I really liked though was the fact that the filmmakers used the original radio commentary from reporter Herbert Zimmermann, which is legendary. Every German football fan knows the important parts of his commentary by heart.All in all a good and entertaining film, although I didn't really like the ending.