Barras today
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Barras today |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1963 |
| length | 96, 98 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Paul May |
| script | J. Joachim Bartsch |
| production |
Walter Traut (overall management) Ernst Steinlechner for Delta, Berlin |
| music | Rolf A. Wilhelm |
| camera | Kurt Hasse |
| cut | Werner Preuss |
| occupation | |
and Max Mairich , Fred Albert , Claus Günther Bedux , Lothar Berg , Otto Bolesch , Roland Bühler , Walter Clemens , Uwe Tiebing | |
Barras Today is a German feature film from 1962 directed by Paul May .
action
Based on the tradition and design of the 08/15 series of films made in the mid-1950s - also under the direction of May - the conditions in the military of the Federal Republic of Germany , the Bundeswehr , are portrayed in episodic form . “Barring any actual act,” as Spiegel wrote, the semi-documentary film shows the life of young conscripts from the day they are called up to their release into civilian life.
It shows that the processes at the “Barras” in the early 1960s did not change too much compared to earlier. As in 08/15 there is the stubborn grinder - played by Hans-Christian Blech , this time by Karl-Otto Alberty - who is called Sergeant Knorr here , and as in the previous films, drill scenes and drinking bouts are shown extensively. The problem of Communist infiltration from the East in the form of GDR - propagandists will not be left out: booksellers smuggle using a Bundeswehr officer eastern propaganda material in the recruits lockers, and a photographer learns during a harmless entertainment militarily sensitive information, which he passes immediately and by a radio station controlled to the east under the ominous name "Freiheitssender 904" to be trumpeted out into the world.
Critical notes are not left out either. For example, Sergeant Müller, called Müller VII, who is responsible for training the recruits, is asked to cross a cornfield with his train, which he refuses with the words: "I don't drive through bread." The young gunner Graumann is just very reluctant to put on the military outfit - too much it reminds him that once his father was shot as a war criminal shortly after 1945 . The clerk's office, Lilo, appears as one of the few agents who knows how to solve many problems caused by rough male behavior with female intuition.
Production notes
The film, shot in 1962, happened to the FSK on December 10, 1962 and was initially not approved by the FSK under the age of 18. A second examination as a result of cuts made and advice from specialists from the Bonn Ministries of the Interior and Defense led to the age of admission being lowered to 16 years. As a result of this post-production, the premiere of Barras was delayed today to January 3, 1963.
The majority of the recordings were made in cooperation with the Field Artillery Battalion 45 under the leadership of Major Hauschild, who acted as an advisor. The shooting took place mainly in the Prinz-Eugen-Kaserne in Bad Arolsen - Mengeringhausen ; Further recordings were taken in the Belgian barracks, which were also located there, and in the old town of Mengeringhausen, where the local Nicolai Street was cordoned off.
The idea behind Barras today was to follow up on the great success of the 08/15 film series (1954/55) with a film about the Bundeswehr in the early 1960s. The Gloria Filmverleih described its intention as follows: "The objective film [should] show without make-up the problems that every citizen confronts when he has to put on the soldier's uniform". The attempt to land a certain box office success according to the tried and tested recipe of the 50s went completely wrong. Barras today flopped at the box office in 1963, the "Bundeswehr film quickly disappeared."
Director May, a specialist in soldier and police films since his great success in 08/15 , worked again with a number of his former (1954) 08/15 actors, including Joachim Fuchsberger , Peter Carsten and Emmerich Schrenk .
Werner Achmann designed the film structures .
criticism
Der Spiegel , which Barras briefly called a “Kommiss-Lichtspiel” today , wrote: “The former shooter May initially searched in vain for an acceptable script. But it so happened that the film author Joachim Bartsch ('The Truth About Rosemarie') offered him the manuscript of a trilogy of novels; May promptly decided to film the first part. May about Bartsch: 'He knows something about it, he has three sons at the police station.' (...) At the beginning of the year, Munich's Gloria finally presented German moviegoers with a picture book with - in their opinion - typical scenes from everyday life in the New German soldiers. 'Barras today' is devoid of any actual act and deals, in a kind of documentary outfit, 'with a group of conscripts and accompanies them from their draft to the day of their discharge' (Gloria). Apart from extensive drill and drinking scenes, the opus is apparently supposed to do justice to the “documentary character aimed at” in that the recruits are suddenly faced with two current problems: East “apparatus” and refusal to obey. (...) On the other hand, the Voluntary Self-Control of the Film Industry (FSK) had a whole series of objections when the Gloria presented its finished film at the end of last year. She was initially unable to approve the play of light: The inspectors suspended the test on the grounds that it was not possible to assess the work without specialist advice from the Bonn Ministries of the Interior and Defense. (…) Above all, however, one episode describing a mother's attempt to free her son from military service because the father was executed as a war criminal after 1945 disappeared. In this way, the film lost two of the five female roles - still listed in the program booklet - the soldier's mother and sister no longer appear on the screen. All that remained was the (reduced) supporting role of a barmaid , that of a gunner's bride and the part of the clerk's office, played by Immy Schell. "
Also , the time was hardly kind words for Mays 08/15-Nachklapp: "But this desire [to business success] excludes from the outset the suspicion, it might be an advertising film '. Opposition is known to be more photogenic! However photogenic it may be, in this film it will not exceed the limits of objectivity and fairness ('the cooperation of the Bundeswehr will rule out these errors and deficiencies from the outset', it says elsewhere). 'Where there is light, there is shadow - and where there is shadow, there must be light somewhere.' So much for the program. This language, this logic reveals enough. The rest: the shadows are barracks yard slush and eastern intrigue, light everything else, it's fair and democratic, except for the 'inevitable', but that 'will probably be the same tomorrow as it was yesterday and today'. Above all, commissary boots: the cameraman seems fixated on them. The instructor is a gentle, full-blown man, saying goodbye to him mixes pain with straw hat joy; the unruly recruit, at first suspicious of contacts with the East, of course, turns out to be a silent hero, self-sacrificing shot in the lung and a commander's niece; An atom bomb explodes instructively (only deterrence makes one strong), and if an order is given that Germans shoot at Germans, those up there will have already thought about it, the little one is not supposed to think about it, and the soldier certainly is not. This cynical low point of apologetic filmmaking pretends to 'illuminate' the everyday life of today's soldier in a critical, but quite fair way. The name of the 08/15 director, who can reconcile the wretched product with his artistic conscience, is still nailed down: Paul May . "
Handbook VII of the Catholic Film Critics said: "German soldier film, which is particularly popular with the constant use of expletive language, but hardly comes close to reality."
Web links
- Barras today in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Barras today at filmportal.de
- Bread of the early years . In: Der Spiegel . No. 3 , 1963, p. 59 ( online - background report).
- Flashback to the shooting