"Der Tod der Maria Malibran" or "The Death of Maria Malibran" is a West German German-language film from 1972, will soon have its 45th anniversary, and it is one of the earlier full feature works by filmmaker Werner Schroeter, who wrote and directed this one. His lead actress here is Magdalena Montezuma, with whom he worked on other occasions too, but audiences today may be more familiar with Christine Kaufmann and Candy Darling, so this is definitely a very female-centered film, like some others by Schroeter. It is based on the character of Maria Malibran and the title already gives away a major spoiler. As the movie is about a female opera singer, nobody should be surprised that there are major musical genre components in here from start to finish. But not even from this perspective it is working. These slightly over 100 minutes are the perfect example of why stage plays almost never translate well to the screen.
I would say that frequent theater-goers may even have a good time seeing this one on stage, but from a theatrical perspective, it is not working out at all. The acting is basically overacting from start to finish and this refers to dialogues as well as body language and physical acting. The sets and costumes may be pompous, but they basically try to hide the lack of convincing scenes and performances. The worst thing here is, however, that from the biopic perspective stated in the title, the film is not working out at all and this is a negative deal-breaker for sure for such a long movie. I never cared for Malibran or the other characters. They just weren't interesting enough. Also as a musical, I cannot say I enjoyed the watch. The singing was not bad, but felt uninspired and stereotypical, extremely generic. I don't recommend the watch at all as this movie dragged so much that I was glad when it was actually over. Major thumbs-down and this is a major contender for Schroeter's worst.
I would say that frequent theater-goers may even have a good time seeing this one on stage, but from a theatrical perspective, it is not working out at all. The acting is basically overacting from start to finish and this refers to dialogues as well as body language and physical acting. The sets and costumes may be pompous, but they basically try to hide the lack of convincing scenes and performances. The worst thing here is, however, that from the biopic perspective stated in the title, the film is not working out at all and this is a negative deal-breaker for sure for such a long movie. I never cared for Malibran or the other characters. They just weren't interesting enough. Also as a musical, I cannot say I enjoyed the watch. The singing was not bad, but felt uninspired and stereotypical, extremely generic. I don't recommend the watch at all as this movie dragged so much that I was glad when it was actually over. Major thumbs-down and this is a major contender for Schroeter's worst.