The production of ‘Mad Heidi’ It started in 2017, with a poster that gave rise to a trailer that took a short time to go viral on social networks. This led to the creation of a crowdfunding that raised the surprising figure of 2 million euros, an outrage. Thanks to this, the production of the film was able to go ahead, backed by the production company of ‘Iron Sky’ For those who don’t remember, it’s a Finnish movie where the Nazis came from space to conquer the planet. He also had a trailer that went viral because of his crazy concept. ‘Mad Heidi’ has a lot in common with ‘Iron Sky’, including the final result. At times it is nice, at times it becomes a bit heavy, but at all times it is an idea that was fantastic for a short but not so much for a feature film. It is a humble production, with several “first times”: Directors Johannes Hartmann and Sandro Klopfstein make their feature film directing debuts and part of the cast had never worked in film before. Experience is sometimes a degree and here it is very noticeable that it is a very inexperienced director. There is a lot of desire and a lot of love behind it, something that is reflected throughout the film, but it is also very unbalanced, making it irregular. The mix of genres (rather sub-genres, but hey, I think you get the point) doesn’t work and doesn’t flow as it should, sometimes looking like parts of different movies glued together. It could have focused on what was seen in the fun original trailer, which followed in the footsteps of what was done by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodríguez with their Grindhouse project, but the extra that it adds does not add up to much and hinders the real objective of the film, which is the to entertain through the kaffir and the absurd. ‘Mad Heidi’ has a prison subplot (nice reference to a great movie like ‘Female Prisoner Scorpion’), a very poorly worked dramatic part and other elements that are not sufficiently developed to involve the viewer, making him forget that he has come to see Heidi killing Nazis. The biggest problem with this type of film (short films that become feature films) is related to the material created to make the change from one type of film to another, and this is where it suffers the most. ‘Mad Heidi’. Despite these problems, I don’t think this is a failed film. Their aspirations are to please everyone who supported them in crowdfunding and from there, everything else is extra. In this aspect, even in the parts that I have commented on previously, there are successful moments that make you smile, either because of the beast of the scene, because of a successful and funny punch line or some histrionic outburst by Casper Van Dien, who is hilarious. in his role as Nazi leader. He lacks a bit of madness and taking himself less seriously because when he breaks out he manages to create strange and funny scenes, some rescued from the trailer that started it all but being boosted by the budget increase. The final feeling is that of finding ourselves before an unbalanced film, which falls short of the madness that its premise proposes, but in which all the love behind this idea manages to leave it as a picturesque but anecdotal entertainment. It is in this type of production that you notice that there is no big production company behind it and that even when the film is weak, there is something that makes you keep watching it. Note: 5.0
By Marc Sacristán García
@TheLebowskiMan
