Awarded with the Golden Nymph Award of Monte Carlo
Based on a novel by Joseph Roth
121, 78, and 97 minutes
Directed by Michael Kehlmann
Year of production: 1994
Starring: Max von Sydow, Tilman Günther, Charlotte Rampling, Elena Sofia Ricci, Gert Voss, Karl Heinz Hackl
A young lieutenant of petty bourgeois origin who, after saving the emperor’s life at the battle of Solferino, is celebrated as a hero and has been elevated to the peerage cannot come to terms with how the army justifies its practices in the name of political wisdom and decides to leave. He also forbids his son Franz von Trotta to join. Franz then puts the pressure on his own son, wanting him to revive the grand military tradition of the family. The unstable Carl Joseph, however, finds himself unable to live up to the unattainable ideal of his grandfather. He quits his service after tragic events but ends up dying an unheroic war death nonetheless.
