The Path

1940: The journalist Ludwig Kirsch (Volker Bruch) must fear for his life because of critical texts about the Nazi regime and sees only one way out: together with his twelve-year-old son Rolf (Julius Weckauf) he wants to flee from the south of France to Spain, where a ship is to take them to New York. The girl Núria (Nonna Cardoner) is supposed to help them master the dangerous journey. But then Ludwig is discovered during an inspection and captured. Now the children are completely on their own and Rolf has to decide whether to continue to Spain or try to free his father...

"The Path" is the film adaptation of Rüdiger Bertram's acclaimed young adult novel "The Path - The Story of an Escape to Freedom", which in turn was inspired by true events recorded by escapee Lisa Fittko in her book "My Way Across the Pyrenees". Together with her husband, Fittko had helped many refugees in 1940 and 1941 to make their way across the mountains lying between France and Spain, so that they could then set off from Lisbon by ship for the USA. In his book, Betram describes this perilous escape from the point of view of children, which makes the difficult and, unfortunately, still topical subject accessible to a young audience.

The film adaptation by Tobias Weimann is also aimed primarily at a younger audience. As an adult, there is a lot that makes it hard to really get emotional access to the story. The camerawork is great and the staging of exciting scenes in particular is really well crafted. But the overall tone is a bit too loose to really reflect the thematic gravity. For children and teenagers, on the other hand, this way of telling the story is quite appropriate, as they are made to understand how dangerous it was for people to go on the run. At the same time, they are not denied access to the story by an enormous heaviness.

"The Path" is concerned to address as wide an audience as possible. Really well this functions however evenly only with the spectators in an age group, in which one deals perhaps straight in the school with the topic. The film is also absolutely suitable as an exciting, but at the same time encouraging way to introduce somewhat older children to the topic. For an older audience, however, the film has some weaknesses that stand in the way of an unqualified recommendation. All in all, however, quite clearly a: worth seeing!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp