Sea is not
It is the most beautiful summer in Thuringia, the Highfield Festival is raging, the sun is shining - but Lena (Elinor Lüdde) feels like she is laughing at her. Three weeks before graduation, all of her friends know what they want to become. Lena, on the other hand, regularly taunts the career adviser, but she has only the spark of an idea: to become a drummer.
Her parents (Thorsten Merten, Ulrike Krumbiegel), sufficiently served by her father's long joblessness, are not very enthusiastic: "We all wanted to make music, that's what it's all about!" The father prophesies his 17-year-old daughter and wants to force her unceremoniously to a technical education. Lena flees.
But the fear takes her away. The fear of failure, the fear of unemployment and, above all, the fear of bending in fear and being unhappy for a lifetime. Her last chance to live her own dream, she grimly grips: With the help of her friends and buddy Hans, where she may live with, she drumming through the summer, says the holiday by the sea with her girls and practices, exercises , exercises - to prove once at the conservatory how serious it is to her dream.
With copper-colored hair, nose ring and much courage to little dialect, leading actress Elinor Lüdde breathes so convincingly into the character of Lena that the viewer almost feels like a voyeur when he looks over the shoulder of the gentle person while learning for the hated final exam. No wonder, then, that today's 24-year-old is responsible for her portrayal in? Meer is not? with the Bavarian Film Award 2007 as the best newcomer actress. The film itself deserves one or two awards: With beautiful, sunny pictures, he makes a declaration of love to the small state of Thuringia, and also captivates with lifelike characters and great dialogues.
The biggest plus point of the feature film debut of director Hagen Keller remains however: the topic. Fear of the future, which gnaws at each of us and steals our dreams piece by piece, drive Lena to despair and give her the feeling: "Something is wrong with me !?
Conclusion: Anyone who has already felt that once himself will experience with enthusiasm how Lena frees herself from the crisis of meaning in the sunshine and regains her life.
Author: Eva Weber
