Young Light (2016) User Reviews (3)

Has more potential

[blumdeluxe · 5/10 · 28 April 2019]

"Junges Licht" tells the story of a young boy who grows up in the coal regions of western Germany with his parents and sister. When he is left alone with his dad and the other people living under these harsh circumstances, he has to learn to become an adult in an environment that's not necessarily designed for it.

In my eyes, the story has a lot of potential. I usually love coming of age stories and some of the plot elements like the older neighboor girl or the rough conditions would make for a more than average production. However, the film never really hits off. Every time you think something elemental happens, things just kind of fade out and leave you guessing. That way it doesn't feel like a climax coming to an end but more like a lot of hazard and chance.

All in all I think that it would have been possible to connect the plotlines more skilfully in order to really catch the audience. As it is the movie has nice elements but isn't really going anywhere.

A lot better than the other reviews suggest

[tin-whistle · 8/10 · 26 July 2022]

I don't think the mediocre IMDb rating does Junges Licht or Young Light justice. I watched this film without subtitles and my German was not nearly good enough to follow the dialogues. But funnily enough, this turned out to be hardly necessary. The story turned out to be largely to follow for me by only the images and the (very well chosen) music. The cinematography was simple but beautiful. The balcony scenes reminded me of Hitchkock's Rear Window, and the depiction of the German homes from around 1960 was downright believable and done with an eye for detail. I completely understand that a movie like Young Light is not for many (bigot) Americans, especially for those who are already annoyed by lesbian Disney characters. Well, European films are often not for the American audience anyway... Too many subtitles and far too few explosions, I guess. In short 8/10 for me.

Did not make much of an impact on me sadly

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 15 December 2017]

The award-nominated "Junges Licht" or "Young Light" is a German 2016 movie that is based on a novel and was directed by Adolf Winkelmann. He is also one of the writers here who adapted the original material. Interestingly enough, Winkelmann was born back in 1946, which says nothing too great about his parents giving him this name. But today we don't wanna talk about that. Winkelmann has been in film for half a century now and this one we got here was his first film in almost a decade again, so it may very well be back to retirement for him now and judging from the quality here, it is not too much of a pity. This was a really long film at over 2 hours in fact. The cast includes a handful actors that German film buffs will recognize, most of all Charly Hübner playing a miner in here. I personally really like him, but even he was underwhelming here. It is a good character study too rarely for the long duration and as a boy is in the story here, I at least hoped we could get a strong coming-of-age story. But no it all feels so much over the surface still, even if the film moves deep down the mines. The historic component with this film actually taking place back in the days when Winkelmann was a young man still was there, but never really elaborated on too well to make an impact from that perspective. And there were more than a few characters in here too that added virtually nothing for me. The bleakness is not the problem, but the film needs to deliver in other departments then and it did not really. A great deal of the contents really felt for the sake of it all, but never suck you in the story. Let me add that I have not read the book this is based on, so I am not a disgruntled reader here or anything. I cannot comment on parallels and differences between the base material and the movie. And still here and there the actors are good enough to elevate the mediorce material into something worth seeing, but definitely not as frequently as I would have hoped. It is not a failure, but certainly an example of too many cooks (screen writers) spoiling the broth as I cannot imagine the novel to be equally forgettable. I give these 125 a thumbs-down. Not recommended.