DEUTSCH COURAGE

REVIEWED - THE MIRACLE OF BERN (DAS WUNDER VON BERN): A not entirely dreadful film about football? A reasonably interesting treatment of the beginnings of the German post-war economic recovery? A story that, with notable success, encourages us to root for the world's least popular sporting nation? Yes, miracle probably is the word.

Sönke Wortmann's sentimental drama deals with Germany's unexpected victory at the 1954 World Cup in Switzerland. Coming at a time when the nation was suffering severe hardship and when expressions of national pride were still viewed with some suspicion, the team's triumph came to be seen as symbolic of the indefatigable work ethic that would, over the next decade, turn West Germany back into an economic dynamo. It was, in that sense, a little like us beating Romania in 1990.

The Miracle of Bern pays special attention to one young football fan (jumpers for goalposts, etc) and his enthusiastic support for a local player making his début for the national side. As the film begins, the jug-eared urchin is facing up to the return, after a decade's detention in a Russian prisoner-war-camp, of the father he has never met. The veteran's journey from anxious despair to acceptance and resolve echoes - rather too deafeningly, perhaps - the nation's collective determination to pull itself together.

But the most telling commentary on the German psyche comes courtesy of a scene in which a team official demonstrates a revolutionary technical innovation to the manager: variously shaped studs for differing weather conditions which, rather than being an immoveable part of the boot, can be screwed in and out of the sole. Such relentless attention to detail and confident belief in the virtues of good, practical design were instrumental in powering Germany through the subsequent decades.

The football scenes are pretty good too and, if they are a little painful to watch for fans used to supporting anybody but the Germans (unless the English are also involved), then that probably serves those people right for entertaining such a taste for low-level bigotry.