Die Patriarchin is a German drama in three parts which premiered on German television (ZDF) in 2004.
It is about a family business: an old coffee company based in Hamburg.
Here is some basic information about this drama:
** English title: The Matriarch
** Produced by Oliver Berben, David Groenewold and Jens Christian Susa
** Directed by Carlo Rola
** Written by Christian Schnalke
** Language: German – no English subtitles!
** Released on DVD in 2005
** Run time: 89 + 89 + 88 minutes = 266 minutes
** Bonus material (five chapters) = 68 minutes
** Total run time: 334 minutes
The cast includes the following:
The first group
** Iris Berben as Nina Vandenberg – Gero’s second wife
** Michael König as Gero Vandenberg – Director of Vandenberg Coffee Company
** Adrian Topol as Nils Vandenberg – Nina and Gero’s son
** Nadja Bobyleva as Finja Vandenberg – Nina and Gero’s daughter
** Lisa Kreuzer as Ilka Vandenberg – Gero’s first wife
** Steffen Wink as Steffen Vandenberg – Ilka and Gero’s son
** Felix Eitner as Kai Vandenberg – Ilka and Gero’s son
** Ina Weisse as Corinna Vandenberg – Ilka and Gero’s daughter
The second group
** Christoph Waltz as Wolf Sevening – Tanja’s husband
** Sophie Rois as Tanja Sevening – Wolf’s wife
** Ulrich Noethen as Bent Peerson – a businessman
** Alexander Kerst as Gorm Vandenberg – Gero’s father
** Miguel Herz-Kestranek as Arno Onyango (born Vandenberg) – Gero’s brother
** Jürgen Tarrach as Jens Thiede – a civil servant, German tax office
** Julia Stinshoff as Sanna Vandenberg – Steffen’s wife
** Dietrich Mattausch as Joost Hasselbrook – a businessman
As stated above, Die Patriarchin is a German drama; it is a fictional story placed in a contemporary context.
In this case, the context is the world of big business in four different locations - Germany, the US, Malta, and Kenya – in the beginning of the 21st century.
I do not wish to spoil the viewing for anyone. I am not going to say much about what happens in this drama. I will only tell you how the story begins:
Nina is the second wife of Gero, who is the director of an old coffee company (a family business). Nina and Gero have been married for 18 years and they have two children, but the marriage is not going well. Nina is sitting alone in the villa in Hamburg, while Gero is somewhere in Austria celebrating his birthday with his family.
Nina feels sorry for herself. She drinks more than she should. She has a problem with alcohol. When she accidentally knocks over a candle, she sets the living room on fire.
When Gero is informed about the fire, he rushes back to Hamburg where he finds Nina in a hospital. Nina tries to keep a distance from him. She says she wants a divorce, but he says this is out of the question.
The next day he goes on a business trip. He is the pilot of a small plane which crashes in the Alps. Gero and the co-pilot are both killed.
Now the company has a big problem: who will be the next director? This not the only problem: in the wreck, the authorities find a briefcase with 40,000 Euros, obviously black money that Gero was trying to hide somewhere.
When the authorities look into the case, they suspect that tax laws have been broken. Nina, who is now a widow, is held responsible for what her husband did. She is told she must pay a huge sum of money in taxes or go to prison.
She does not have enough money to pay what the tax office demands. But she says she will try to find out where Gero was hiding his black money. She wants to clear her name and at the same time save the company.
This is how the story begins and this is where my presentation ends. It is a story about love and hate, about family and fraud, about loyalty and betrayal.
If you want to find out what happens to Nina and the people around her, you will have to watch the drama all the way to the end.
This large-scale production includes several famous German actors; perhaps the most famous is Iris Berben, who plays the leading role of Nina, the matriarch.
Her son Oliver is the producer.
The drama was filmed in four locations:
** Hamburg, Germany
** New York, USA
** Valletta, Malta
** A coffee farm in Kenya
Since there are many characters in this drama, it takes a while to find out who is who and how they are connected with each other. But once you know this, I am sure it will capture your attention, because the story is dramatic and often emotional.
What do reviewers say about it?
On IMDb it has a rating of 64 per cent.
On Amazon Germany there are at the moment 89 ratings of this product; 28 with reviews.
The average rating is 4.5 stars which corresponds to a rating of 90 percent.
In my opinion, the rating on IMDb is too low, while the rating on Amazon is more appropriate.
The drama won two important awards:
** The Golden Camera (Germany) 2005 = Best German Television Movie
** The Romy Gala (Austria) 2005 = Favourite actress = Iris Berben
I understand the positive reviews as well as the prestigious awards and I agree with them. But I still have to mention two flaws:
# 1. Some scenes are too short. It feels as if they are cut off before we get to the end of them.
A case in point is Nina’s first journey to New York. There is no warning, no planning. Suddenly she is in New York: she is in a taxi that is driving on a bridge crossing the river.
A moment later she meets Kai who takes her to a restaurant where they meet Bent. But the meeting with Kai is not going well.
Nina is upset and storms out of the place. Kai follows her, but when he reaches the street, she is nowhere to be found. She has disappeared.
This is the end of the scene in New York, which runs for only four minutes. A moment later, Nina is already back in Germany. Apparently, the journey to New York was a total waste of time and money.
This drama takes place in 2004. In 2004, the internet had been invented. In fact, it was ten years old. Nina could have made a video call to New York. She could have made a video call and talked with Kai and Bent face to face. This would have been much cheaper and much easier.
Why did Nina fly all the way to New York to talk to Kai for two minutes and then fly all the way back to Germany?
This meeting in New York was an expensive conversation, which did not even get any results.
Why did the movie-makers decide to send Nina to New York for this? Perhaps they did not know about the internet?
# 2. Too many characters are smoking in this drama, often in places where smoking is not allowed. Here are a few examples:
(a) When Nina meets with Joost in the opera, they are both smoking, even though smoking is probably not allowed in this place.
(b) When Nina and her daughter Finja are in the airport waiting to board the plane to Kenya, Finja suddenly opens a packet of cigarettes and starts to smoke, even though smoking is banned in all German airports.
(c) During a board meeting in the coffee company, Tanja is smoking, although most private companies do not allow smoking during board meetings or conferences.
(d) Bent is often seen smoking.
If this drama was set in the 1950s or the 1960s, I could understand that many characters would be smoking. But this is not the case. This drama is set in the beginning of the 21st century when smoking was banned in most public places such as airports and restaurants.
I do not blame the actors. They are probably just doing what they were told to do. I blame the people behind the drama: the director, the writer, and the producer.
Why did they tell the actors to smoke? In particular, why did they tell the actors to smoke in places where smoking is banned? How can they think this is a good idea? How can they think this will improve the quality of the drama?
As you can see, there are some flaws. I have mentioned them here, because they deserve to be mentioned, for the record. But I will regard them as minor flaws which will not disturb my rating of the product.
I want to go all to the top with this drama. I think it deserves a rating of five stars (100 percent).
PS # 1. The drama is placed on two DVDs.
On disc # 1 we have episodes one and two.
On disc # 2 we have episode three plus the bonus material: interviews with cast and crew; the making of the mini-series; special effects; set visits in Africa; and some trailers.
Inside the DVD box there is a small brochure with background information about cast and crew.
PS # 2. Iris Berben, Oliver Berben, and Carlo Rola have worked together on other products, including Krupp - Eine deutsche Familie, a three-part drama about the Krupp family and their famous steel company in Essen, which premiered in 2009.
*****
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