Kinder der Berge (1958)

Road worker Josef Rainer and his wife Marianne, who tries to supplement their income by working as a waitress, lead a very frugal life, marked by all sorts of hardships, in the tiny Principality of Liechtenstein. Josef has an artistic talent for craftsmanship and spends his free time carving wooden animal figures and religious sculptures. His small works of art are, at best, laughed at by his fellow citizens, but are usually dismissed with contempt as worthless. Hoping to make ends meet more easily, Josef and Marianne set out to become farmers, and with their meager savings they buy a weak, rather sickly-looking dairy cow. Their son Hansli Rainer names it after his little sister, Ludmila. Soon the Rainer family’s already precarious situation worsens further: first Josef breaks his leg, then they discover that Ludmila does not provide the milk they had hoped to sell to live on. To earn at least some money, the head of the family eventually plans to have the poor animal slaughtered. But Hansli and his little sister Ludmila want no part of that, so the two children take the cow to a lush pasture, where they lovingly care for it. Since the Lord keeps his protective hand over animals as well as people, a great miracle happens one day: Ludmila becomes a true wonder cow, suddenly giving more milk than any other cow in the village. The devout locals are certain that this is closely connected with Josef’s carving of a figure of a saint. And so Ludmila also indirectly ensures that the Rainer family becomes financially well off, because suddenly everyone is clamoring for Josef’s small wooden works of art. But good Ludmila, exhausted from giving so much milk, dies a peaceful cow’s death.