Buddenbrooks/Die Buddenbrooks/Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (2008) - Solid, but overly romantic German adaptation of Thomas Mann's classic novel

♥♥♥♥

+ Best Period Movie of the Year

The poster for Heinrich Breloer's Buddenbrooks

QUICK REVIEW:

Thomas Mann's (Death in Venice (1912)) German classic about the mercantile family Buddenbrooks in Lübeck in Northern Germany, where the patriarch Jean passes on the company to his good son Thomas, - but dissolution threatens.
Good adaptation, which is elevated by its high production value; costumes, locations and sets are tip-top. Buddenbrooks is a very beautiful and attractive film, which loyally follows Mann's novel.
The acting is mostly A-OK. My critique is of the score, by Hans-Peter Ströer, which at times changes Mann's dryly observant text into wallowing romance.
The epic film Buddenbrooks is, in general, very little artistically, and very much German. A bit bombastic and unsubtle, but sturdy and well-made.
Unsurprisingly, its director Heinrich Breloer (and Ströer) have had long careers in German TV.

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A fine old cover for Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks

Watch the - unfortunately unsubtitled - trailer here

Budget: 16.2 mil. euros
Box office: Unknown (but 1.2 mil. Germans saw it in theaters)
= Uncertainty

What do you think of Buddenbrooks and other Mann-works on the big screen?