Die drei Königskinder (2019)

The fairy tale unfolds over a period of almost 20 years and has many different plotlines and characters, whose differing social positions and backstories play an important role. The story is about the royal children Lotte, Fritz, and Theo, who grow up with a kind gardener couple, Emmi and Hans. The siblings do not know that they are of royal birth: when they were infants, they were taken from the young royal couple, Marie and Alexander, two years apart, and left in a wicker basket to drift down the stream, which carried them to the gardeners. Twelve years after their “arrival,” Lotte happens to meet the young King Alexander in the forest. She bears a striking resemblance to his wife, Marie. He does not know that his wicked mother, Eliza, stole the children from their cradles out of anger at the peasant girl Marie’s low birth and replaced them with dogs—which he now believes to be his children. The court servant Corbinian was supposed to drown the infants, but could not bring himself to do it, and instead let them drift downstream in the basket. When Eliza hears about Alexander’s encounter, she realizes that the three children are still alive and decides to send them to their deaths herself. Disguised as a herb woman, she strikes up a conversation with Lotte and tells her that on the Magic Mountain she can find out from the Bird of Truth who her real parents are, but that she must first obtain two gifts for it there. The two older brothers try first to win the gifts, but fail and are turned to stone. Through her sincerity, honesty, and special bond with animals, Lotte succeeds in passing the tests and then also frees her enchanted brothers. All three then reveal themselves to the young king as his children. Eliza confesses what she did and is thrown into the dungeon. Marie, who was believed to be dead, had also been sent by her to the Magic Mountain and turned to stone there; she, too, is freed. At the end, the three children celebrate happily with the royal couple and their foster parents, who have been welcomed into the royal family.