This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The award-winning "Meine Schwester Maria" or "My Sister Maria" is a 1.5-hour documentary movie from 2002, so this one has its 15th anniversary this year. The director is Oscar winner Maximilian Schell and here he gives us an insight into the life of his older sister Maria, not an Oscar winner, but still a huge star and we find out about her glory days, but also about her life as an old woman suffering from dementia. I would say overall it was competently executed here I guess. You get a good insight most of the time, sometimes even a great one. Still it felt to me to be honest as if the documentary was good, but nowhere near as good as it could have been. This has to do with strange, almost pointless, supporting players here and forgettable plots you could almost say that cost the film quite a bit in the authenticity department. I personally believe that Max Schell would have had a great deal more and more interesting anecdotes to tell about his sister that certainly also would not have been too personal and could have turned the film into something truly special. So it is a success, but not a great success I would say. But maybe you also need to be a bigger Maria Schell fan than I am to really get the love in these 90 minutes. I like her, but I would not say she is anywhere near my personal favorites. That description actually would fit better when it comes to describing how I see Max Schell. Shame there is nobody out the to make a similar documentary about the late actor sadly, he was truly tremendous during his peak. But back to this one here, I think there are some flaws with the execution and concept in terms of the approach and general idea overall, but also many good moments and I believe the positive in here is more frequent than the negative. Go check it out.

But wonderful nonetheless. Max Schell recreates, with the help of many family members, scenes from his sister Maria's last days. (The film if from 2002 and Maria died in 2005.) The famous movie star is living on the family homestead in Austria in a lucid but irresponsible state, following a stroke. Scenes of her daily life are interspersed with medical commentaries, a discussion of her financial problems and film excerpts from her long list of international hits, films she keeps watching on the many television sets installed in her bedroom. I suspect some of the scenes are reenactments and recreations, some of them consciously involving Maria Schell herself. If that is the case, this is the last instance of Maria Schell's acting and one of the very few DVDs featuring her work on this side of the Atlantic. Because it is a very sad fact that very few of her films (in English, French, Italian or German) are available in that format today. As this documentary is already three years old and has just made it to DVD, there is little hope this situation will ever change. But you never know...

When Maria Schell retired to her parental homestead in the Austrian alps, her once so glamorous internationally acclaimed movie star life changed from stardom to quiet oblivion. There she occasionally met her family - and the bailiff. Her mental health made it difficult for her to make the difference between fiction and reality. She ordered several expensive TV sets, chandeliers and so forth, not realizing that she was flat broke. Generous to herself and friends alike, she spent millions until the sale by court order of all her belongings including the family homestead was imminent. It was her famous brother Maximilian Schell who at least wanted to save the farm and the surrounding land for the family. The debts were so high and the compulsory auction so near that he had to sell his beloved art paintings in order to gather the astronomical amount of money needed to avoid the loss of his and Maria's childhood home.Maximilian Schell portrays this sad and obviously final episode of his beloved sister Maria's life in a very special docu-drama filled with retrospectives of her movie work. These movie clips are the bright side of her life, contrasting the real life, which was not so real to her anymore. Or was it? Maximilian reflects about the meaning of life and if his sister may have retired in a sort of mental way station claiming the paradise as long as she was living and not only after she would die.This movie actually is an insider movie, a very personal treatment of a family tragedy and full of love, very soft-spoken. The warm and close relationship between brother and sister, both famous actors, is touching without being kitschy. It is knowingly heart-moving, though. The movie's red line is the short distance Maria is forced to walk from the living house to the "hut" where it all began, where her mother gave birth to her and her siblings. Maximilian urges her to walk this way every day and when she would finally reach the hut, everything would be OK. Throughout the movie we observe Maria Schell advancing step by step until she finally stays in front of a stove trying to make fire. She does not notice that she loses control over the fire. All is burning down.Viewers expecting star chitchat will be disappointed as much as those tabloid story hungry masses who played the shocked ones when it turned out that the story of Maria Schell in poverty and mentally demented was true. Maximilian Schell's movie does not show this. It is a documentary, cleverly combined with quite obviously acted scenes. A set up, maybe the last camera, light, action for his sister. The film ends with Oliver's Theme, composed by Oliver Schell. It is a merry melody instantly returning the thoughtful viewers back to the really real life.

Maximilian Schell does a superb job with this beautiful documentary about his sister, the renowned actress Maria Schell. Very personal and touching yet with a universal appeal. Brilliant and well-worth a watch! You will love this film.