This is one of the best movies of the genre Heimatfilm. A genre from the war-torn Germany, where the people tried to escape the harsh reality by going to the cinema. These movies were filmed with a low budget and showed a more traditional time.Franz Caps approach to the famous novel of Wilhelmine von Hillern is to treat it like a fairy tale. He makes the characters more one-dimensional, but it works surprisingly well. Maybe because the novel itself is inspired by the Nibelungelied. We feel a lot of sympathy for Wally, especially because of the good performance of Barbara Rütting. You may call it overacting, but I enjoy movies that want to entertain the audience.Moreover, we see nice colorful pictures of the alps and are drawn into a story that builds up more suspense than other Heimatfilm movies.
