Whoever knows Germany, knows that Bavarians (like me) are a little different from the other Germans. One one side very traditional, on the other hand forward looking, always trying to combine modern times with the good ol'times. Josef Vilsmeier - like every Bavarian - loves his homeland, and so he just wants to depict his homeland in a cinematic way. He spent dozens of hours in a helicopter over Bavaria, only shortly interrupted by short pauses in which he shows images of a few larger cities or certain points of interest or to show images of typical Bavarian tradition, and watching the beautiful images, they are simply great and show the beauty of our homeland. But still - a lot of things are missing, and some of the text spoken by the director himself leave a foul taste.... To the things missing: there are almost no informations to Bavarian history. The traditions shown in the film are mainly catholic Christian traditions, besides, there is a lot more in Bavaria than the Oktoberfest. There is a clear dominance to the city of Munich (more than a fourth of the film), which is the hometown of the director, but Bavaria is definitely not only Munich! And, two of the more peripheral regions of the country of Bavaria (the "Oberpfalz" and the "Allgäu" or Bavarian Swabia) are only mentioned very shortly, typical for the pure Bavarian, that considers himself somehow to be in the middle of everything. And this is where the film and some of the director's remarks leave a bad taste: he mentions Bavaria to be the "Land with the most economic power in Europe" "the best of the world" - come on, I am a Bavarian, but mainly, I'm German! Germany is a independent country, not Bavaria, it's just a part of Germany. And Germany - like all countries - has other beautiful places as well. A certain patriotism is good, but I personally despise this strong feeling of "Bavarian supremacy". In conclusion: beautiful pictures, no equilibrium in documentation, lack of historic details, other people of Bavaria than the dominating Bavarians and Frankonians clearly underrepresented. And someone outside Bavaria will definitely be disgusted by this tone of Bavarian supremacy. At school the teacher would say: insufficient work, Grade E (or Note 5 in Germany), sit down.
