It had all the ingredients to be an outstanding movie. Great and deep story with a touching real human drama, good actors and a beautiful location.Unfortunately none of that was able to save it from the bad scrip full of cheesie lines, the bad directing that made the movie look more like a slide show than a fluent motion picture and the resulting over and under acting which lead to making this movie completely unbelievable ... somehow it feels like this movie was never really finished or rushed to be done.I've soon other works of Barber Schroeder and they are good, so I honestly don't know what happens here.

I don't get it. A beautiful German or Swiss woman moves to the Spanish island of Ibiza for 50 years, because she is ashamed of being German. But how does she pay her bills, and why is there no man in her life, or children? What has she been doing for 50 years? Just watering her plants, shopping for tomatoes, and brooding about her nationality? Well, Marthe Keller is certainly one of the most attractive 70 year olds you will see. She does a nice job of conveying pain, as do the other actors. But I'm sorry. You have to explain more.The dialogue between her and the boy's mother is excellent. The mother points out the futility of a life lived in protest, when she was never guilty of anything to begin with. The self-righteousness of it.But we need more of a back story. It took half the picture just to hear the back story that we did get. And that was not even close to enough.Also, how could the German characters not recognize her German accent? Hee hee. They were so shocked to find out that she was German.It's a thoughtful film, well acted, and well photographed. But I don't recommend it. Too slow and too cryptic.

We don't need a 500-word review to understand this film is very personal for Barbet Schroeder. It would have been a better movie, had the young man and older woman engaged in a sexual relationship in the first act. The idea of a summer love affair between these two Germans, from separate generations - would have had a much deeper gravity for the viewer, in my opinion.

Set on the island of Ibiza, Spain, in 1990, this latest movie from the acclaimed Swiss director Barbet Schroeder is a quiet yet absorbing drama.The two leads here Marthe Keller and Max Riemelt are both excellent in their roles of Martha and Jo respectively. Martha is an expatriate from Germany who has rented a house in Ibiza for years, overlooking the beautiful Mediterranean Sea. The much younger Jo, a native Berliner, has just moved in as Martha's neighbor, with aspirations of creating and playing his own techno music in the thriving local clubs.Despite the difference in their ages, there is an immediate chemistry and comfort level between the two. Martha, however, having left Germany in 1936, during the time of Hitler and the Nazis, has been so revolted by the actions of her countrymen during the war that she has refused to speak the German language to this day, has not returned to her native country, or used any products manufactured by the Germans such as VW's.On the other hand, Jo only has learned of the war and the Nazis through school and from filtered stories from his mother and grandfather. Thus he has the attitude of not dwelling in the past but moving forward, not only individually but for his native Germany as well. When Jo's mother and grandfather arrive in Ibiza from Berlin for a visit, some truths about the Nazi horrors will emerge, leading to changes for all concerned.There are two concurrent themes being played out in the movie. The first being that of a possible May-December relationship between Martha and Jo. The second being how some Germans choose to have selective amnesia about what really occurred during WW2 and want to just move on and leave all that for the history books.All in all, I found this to be a well acted, quiet, and cerebral film that I found myself engaged in from start to finish. It also has some wondrous cinematography of the Mediterranean Sea and surrounding areas.