Nussknacker und Mausekönig (2015)

At Christmas, the Stahlbaum family gathers in the living room of Medical Councillor Karl Stahlbaum’s home. His grown-up daughter Marie receives an edible white sugar doll and a not very attractive dress, while his little son Fritz gets a sword and toy soldiers with a cannon. To his mother’s annoyance, a mouse runs through the house. Then Uncle Anselmus Drosselmeier appears, whom Fritz has already spotted outside. He brings a Sugar Kingdom as a gift: a box with something like a stage, full of beautiful mechanical sugar figures, with a sugar fairy in the middle. Marie also finds a wooden nutcracker under the Christmas tree. The uncle already knows it, but unfortunately Fritz immediately damages it: he tries to crack a cannonball, which the nutcracker’s teeth cannot withstand. Startled, Fritz drops the nutcracker, breaking off one of its arms. Marie puts it in the display cabinet, where the toy soldiers have also been put away; she thinks it will be safe there. In conversation, Uncle Anselmus has to admit that his nephew Friedrich is still missing after the war, though he believes he will find him soon. The following night, Marie wakes uneasily at faint noises and goes to the living room to check on the nutcracker. The mouse follows her. When the clock strikes twelve, the uncle’s reflection appears in it, and suddenly many more mice appear, though they are immediately—and thereafter—no longer seen. Suddenly, a large boy wearing a crown stands in the room, a fighting stick in his hand. He speaks rudely to Marie and asks for the nutcracker. The nutcracker begins to move. As the lout grows more threatening, the nutcracker also turns into a large boy, still dressed as a nutcracker. The two boys insult one another and fight. Although one of the nutcracker’s arms has been broken off, he can still fight with a sword. They apparently know each other: the nutcracker calls his opponent Mauserinks, who now calls himself King Mauserinks. While his opponent mocks him, the nutcracker calls on Fritz’s toy soldiers for help, but they can only move “a little.” Marie, however, helps him by throwing her slipper at Mauserinks. Then she faints. The next morning, when the butler comes in, Marie is still lying there, but wakes when her mother calls to her. She has developed a fever. The nutcracker is still there, too, back in his small form as a damaged wooden figure, but Mauserinks is nowhere to be seen. Naturally, no one believes Marie’s strange story. Soon Uncle Anselmus comes to visit again and tells a fairy tale: In a distant kingdom, the king was holding a feast, but the Mouse Queen Mauserinks and her seven sons had eaten the bacon needed to make the sausages. The court inventor, called Drosselmeier, managed to kill the six older mouse sons. In revenge, the Mouse Queen transformed the formerly beautiful Princess Pirlipat into an ugly creature. Years later, a young man from the Sugar Kingdom managed to transform her back, for which the king promised him her hand in marriage. When Uncle Anselmus has got this far, Marie’s father interrupts him with the remark, “All’s well that ends well.” But when Marie is alone with Uncle Anselmus for a moment, she wants to hear the end of the story: Afterwards, the young man accidentally trampled the Mouse Queen, but as she died she was able to take revenge once more: she turned him into a nutcracker. Since the young man had become a nutcracker, the princess would not—and could not—keep her promise to marry him in return for his freeing her, and she banished him along with the inventor. When her uncle tells her this, Marie calls the princess ungrateful. Now she understands for certain: the first mouse in this house is none other than the Mouse Queen’s youngest son, and the insolent boy with the crown is him too, transformed; and the damaged nutcracker is the one from the fairy tale. The following night, the crowned boy appears again, this time right beside Marie’s bed. He is rude again, waking her with his sharp metal finger and demanding the nutcracker. But Marie does not reveal where the nutcracker is now. She says she did nothing to the lout, but he resents her throwing the slipper because it allowed the nutcracker to escape him. He makes no secret of wanting to destroy the nutcracker. In anger, he eats the white sugar doll, which is a shame, and then vanishes into thin air. Marie goes back to the display cabinet, where she now cannot find the nutcracker herself. The next morning, the butler finds her on the floor again. This time she wakes when her father calls to her. He explains that Uncle Anselmus has taken the nutcracker home to repair it, and that a little sword is lying beside it. At the next stroke of midnight, Marie wakes uneasily again, and the lout appears in front of her bed once more, demanding the nutcracker. Again, she refuses to give in. She is no longer quite so frightened. This time, as punishment, he tears up a book from her shelf, one her mother gave her with a dedication for her twelfth birthday; then he vanishes into thin air again. This time Fritz has heard it, but arrives too late and still does not believe Marie. The uncle brings the nutcracker back, repaired. When Marie’s father asks, he still cannot say what has become of his missing nephew Friedrich. Marie privately explains the danger to him, but he still does not believe her—or at least pretends not to. Marie spends the next midnight in the living room, and once again the lout Mauserinks appears with his fighting stick. The nutcracker transforms as he did in their previous encounter. Although he has two healthy arms again, his situation is even more dangerous because he has no sword. This time, however, Fritz wakes in time because of the noise. He is no longer surprised and gives the endangered nutcracker his sword. In the renewed fight, the nutcracker manages to tear the crown from his enemy’s head. It immediately dissolves, and Mauserinks turns back into a mouse. The nutcracker is saved, and in gratitude he leads Marie into the Sugar Kingdom, the box of sugar figures. All the figures are now alive, and the sugar fairy thanks Marie for saving the Sugar Kingdom and the nutcracker, who can now remain human. Marie and he fall in love. Afterwards, Marie is back in her bed, and the freed nutcracker is gone. The next morning, this time it is Fritz whom the butler finds on the living-room floor. He, too, wakes quickly when the adults arrive. He is fine, and Marie has recovered as well. Now she puts on her new dress. On his next visit, Uncle Anselmus brings his nephew Friedrich, who has reappeared: he is the freed nutcracker. Marie only asks him whether he intends to stay long, but he answers that he does not know yet and might stay forever.