The Miracle of Bern

The other day, my father and I watched The Miracle of Bern (Das Wunder von Bern) directed by Soenke Wortmann. As it's a football film, I really wasn't looking forward to it and thought it would be purely football, but how wrong I was !! Behind the facade of the 'miracle' 1954 World Cup in Bern, is the story of a young and very cute boy, Matthias Lubanski, played amazingly by the young Louis Klamroth. The film can be regarded as a portrait of post-war Germany, as we see, impoverished Essen (where I did a German Exchange!), a mining area, in contrast with prospering Munich, and then Switzerland. 

So Matthias is the lucky mascot bag carrier for a local/national footballer Helmut Rahn, played by Sascha Goepel, who playes for Rot-Weiss Essen as well as the national side. His now depressed father Richard returns from 11 years as a prisoner of war in Russia, and is a changed man, not used to the new, changing Germany, and his backward ways of disciplining his children, whom have also changed (the eldest son to communism and his daughter to dancing with british soldiers!!) during his absence. 

The relationship between Helmut and Matthias is son and father-like, and it is seeing Matthias at the final game in Bern, which causes Rahn to score the winning goal for Germany. I won't go into what the other factors which caused the miracle win were; this you can find out for yourself. For all Germans, it's the unexpected euphoria of a win that heals many wounds, brings the community together at the local pubs (Matthias's mum runs one) and becomes a symbol of the ongoing economic "miracle" or "Wirtschaftswunder" which followed soon after.

I found this film SO emotional, not because it's sad, but because of the hope the characters portray, and the faith they (especially young Matthias) have in the West German national side. Football turns out to be a binding subject between Matthias and his estranged dad, and as I said before, it brought all Germans together. 

The only bad thing I have to say about the film is that I had to have english subtitles on as some of the dialect is quite colloquial as well as the accents.

I'm not the best person to comment on the football aspect of the film, but the German coach, Sepp Herberger, played by Peter Franke, I found to be really inspirational with his pre-match and half time motivational speeches and I believe he was definitely a deciding factor when it came to the world cup. 

Overall, despite the title of the film hinting at the '54 world cup which to me shouts, 'THIS FILM IS PURELY FOOTBALL', I think it's a family story of hope, and shows in a very sensitive way the changes that this world cup have on the Lubanski family and on Germany as a whole. 

If you're to see only one German movie in your lifetime, this HAS to be it. The numerous awards the film received, as well as the hords of people who went to see it, including Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Peer Steinbrueck to name a few, can back me up here !