A Love Story in Essence

A movie can be good. However, seldom can a movie that is adapted from a novel gain acclaim. This does not mean that the movie is of low quality, but audiences expect more from movie adaptations.

In the year of 1999, German writer Gunter Grass won the Nobel Prize for his virgin novel The Tin Drum. For years, I had not finished it because it is indeed a river novel. However, I made up my mind to finish reading after I saw the movie The Tin Drum that directed by Volker Shlondorff.

After I saw the movie, I read the whole book and I find that both the movie and the book are quite good and the movie is even better. I believe that the success of this movie is mainly because that the director bravely trim some plots and details of the novel.


As we all know, Gunter Grass is a great linguist, artist and poet before writing novel. You will find that his novels reflect the culture and politics at his time. Also, he is a writer who has strong social responsibility. Thus, readers may find the backgrounds of his novels are rather complicated.

Hardly can I image that such an informative story be told in only 142 minutes. However, Volker Shlondorff did this and he did well. He broke the limitations set by Gunter Grass, found a visible clue for the movie and recreated the story.

You don not have to take too serious when you see the movie. To me, it is merely a love story, several love stories exactly. The first love story happens between the grandmother Anna and a man; the second love story happens between Annie and her two lovers; the third love story is about the hero Oscar and his lover, later his step mother Maria.