WIR KOENNEN AUCH ANDERS!
A film review by Till Poser
Copyright 1993 Till Poser
A film by Detlef Buck and Klaus Boje Germany, 1993
Abstract: Two brothers of very limited intellectual capacity venture into Germany's "Wild East" to claim an inheritance there. What starts out as a short routine trip develops through chance, circumstance and a string of droll mishaps into a very funny road movie which has the protagonists fleeing before The Law. This film is the third major undertaking of director Detlef Buck, and again it is a loving homage to northern Germany and the people and characters found therein.
Rating: On a scale between -5 and 5 : a high 3 (3+)
The concept of a road movie in Germany admits of being quite a bit oxymoronic, given the fact that it is almost impossible not to find comprehensive signs on any road after a couple of kilometres that will direct anyone towards his destination. Buck makes this concept work, however, by making his protagonists illiterates. The bothers Kipp and Most are on their way to claim the estate of their recently deceased grandmother somewhere on the Baltic coast of East Germany. Kipp, a dapper slender man in what could pass for an old-fashioned senior prom suit, is an inmate of a home for the mentally handicapped on leave. Most, his short and fat brother, is a farm worker who forgot what he learned in school a long time ago. Both venture eastwards in an ancient pickup truck, but very soon find themselves lost in what used to be the GDR.
Meanwhile Victor, a Russian soldier of the Western Group of the Red Army decides that he wants to go home, without the leave of his superiors. During his escape, his path crosses that of Kipp and Most, whom he bullies into giving him a ride. After an altercation with latter-day highwaymen, which proves somewhat fatal for some of the latter, he becomes a trusted companion and genial partner in their way evermore eastwards.
One of strong points of this movie is the meticulous development of the characters. Kipp (Friedrich Kr'ol), with his delusion of grandeur, his disregard for reality and his overt innocence, borne out of a long sheltered life in an asylum, is very clearly mildly deranged, but this impression is accomplished without resorting to eye-rolling and suchlike histrionics (I was very strongly reminded of Peter Seller's underplayed performance in BEING THERE.). The actor spent a couple of months in a an asylum to acquire the mannerisms of the type of person he portrays and I consider it time well spent. Most, on the other hand, epitomises the suspicious, garrulous and parochial backwoods type that is, with small variations, found almost everywhere. The impression is made subtly, though. Victor, at first a kindly bully without malice, afterwards a sunny and agreeable companion, does not speak one word of German and is thus often a detachedly amused observer to the frequent quarrels between the two so disparate brothers. While Kipp grandiloquently talks and Most truculently balks, he often takes the lead and acts for the group.
Such as they are, the heroes of this film are quite unlikely to be foci for audience identification. However, whatever they do they do have the sympathy of the audience. Even when some people they do encounter happen not to survive the experience, this falls under "collateral damage" rather than "malice aforethought." Their rampage has a childlike, unreal quality and is innocently funny in consequence.
While we watch the progress of our protagonists, we are treated to a cornucopia of characters, such as adolescents swigging beer to dull their boredom, picturesque hooligans turned part-time robbers, sharpers and con-men regarding them as ready prey, truculent and cowardly skin-heads (Detlef Buck in a hilarious cameo-appearance), self-important police and all the types one would expect in small villages and towns in northern Germany. Buck, a farmer's son from northern Germany, has a very keen, but sympathetic eye for these people and while some of the characterisations are quite unflattering, none them are entirely malicious. While some characterisations are on the verge of being a caricature, none of them are entirely overblown and stereotyped.
I strongly recommend this film. Bearing in mind, however, that the whole mien, subject and realisation are very much German, I wonder as to the appeal and the chances of distribution outside, specifically in the US, where the majority of the readers of this group reside. It is, in my opinion, a very entertaining, slightly paradoxical, movie, a very interesting document on the Germany that is and a good argument that German movie industry is not entirely dead.
Till Poser Internet: poser@vxdsyc.desy.de -F35- ZEUS DESY/Freiburg Bitnet: POSER@DESYVAX bldg.1b-235, Notkestr.85 Hepnet: VXDESY::POSER (13313::Poser) D-2000 Hamburg 52 Tel.: -49-40-8998-2004
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