Are you ready to be really moved by a film, its story and the characters in it? Then you should tune in to the very well-cast and cleverly structured dramedy “Mittagsstunde” in the evening program tonight.
“Mittagsstunde” is one of those rare films that manages to make us laugh, cry, dream and reflect even days after watching it. If you didn’t manage to see the tragicomedy, which has become a nationwide sleeper hit, in the cinema in 2022, you can catch it for the first time on free-to-air television at prime time.
“Mittagsstunde” airs today, August 26, 2024 at 8:15 p.m. on ZDF. The film is now available to stream for free in the ZDFmediathek for the next four weeks. Alternatively, it is available on Blu-ray, DVD and as paid video-on-demand:
“Midday Hour” on Amazon*
The film is included in both the media library and on the home cinema discs in High German and Low German versions. Director Lars Jessen (“Fraktus”) shot “Mittagsstunde” in parallel in both languages.
In the lead role you can see Charly Hübner from “Polizeiruf 110”. Lennard Conrad (“And then someone gets up and opens the window”) plays the character as a child. At her side shines Peter Franke (“Rennschwein Rudi Rüssel”), Hildegard Schmahl (“The young chief Winnetou”), Rainer Bock (“The Collini case”), Gabriela Maria Schmeide (“The Kangaroo Conspiracy”), Julika Jenkins (“Dear Child”) and Gro Swantje Kohlhof from “Schlaf”.
“Mittagsstunde”: This is the story
Ingwer (Hübner) is a lecturer in history at Kiel University when he realises that his “Olen” (Schmahl, Franke) can no longer cope with their everyday lives alone. So the man in his late forties decides to take a year off and go back to his North Frisian home village of Brinkebüll. When he arrives there, he realises that everything is much worse than he remembered.
This realization does not only refer to the condition of his parents, who are actually his grandparents, as he only found out by chance when he was eleven years old. The whole village is deserted, the school and the shop have been closed for years and the surroundings are hardly recognizable. In addition, his family’s house has mutated into a kind of desolate memorial to his dead mother Marret (Kohlhof), who he long thought was his big sister…
A modern home film of the best kind
With “Mittagsstunde” (“Midday Hour”), Lars Jessen has succeeded in creating the best kind of local film. It is wonderfully entertaining, emotionally moving and allows the audience to imagine themselves in the characters’ shoes. You don’t have to be from northern Germany to do this. Thanks to the success of the Eberhofer crime series, for example, people from all other parts of the country now know what makes the Lower Bavarian province tick.
As we describe in our strong FILMSTARTS review, which gives it 4 out of 5 stars, the film is not designed to do that per se. Nevertheless, it should help people from all other corners of our country to better understand the “North German way” that is often seen as reserved or even unwelcoming. “Mittagsstunde”, based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Dörte Hansen, is hilarious at times, then shockingly sad, but very entertaining throughout.
The book “Mittagsstunde” on Amazon*
The characters and their story seem incredibly authentic. The family chronicle at the heart of the events is told using loosely alternating segments from the years 1965, 1976 and 2012. At the beginning, it may take a while until you can assign the different actors to the roles in the respective time periods. But your patience quickly pays off. Because this back and forth explains the development of the characters and their environment very elegantly and, in terms of emotional impact, much more deeply than a chronological sequence of events could have.
If you want to see more from director Lars Jessen and his lead actor Charly Hübner after enjoying “Mittagsstunde”, you can do so in the cinema right now. In the following article you can read all about the duo’s new film together. The trailer is also available to watch there:
A village is running out of water: Exclusive trailer premiere for “Micha thinks big” – first in cinemas, then in the ARD Mediathek
*The links to Amazon’s offer are so-called affiliate links. If you make a purchase via these links, we receive a commission. This has no effect on the price.
