The blue milk channel
The blue milk channel ( Hebrew Te'alat blue milk or English The Big Dig) is the title of a radio play by Ephraim Kishon , a satirical collection by Kishon and the film adaptation of the radio play directed by Kishon.
The radio play
The radio play is in a book of the same name from 1971 (title: Der Blaumilchkanal. Satires. Radio plays and one-act play), which is available in a German translation by Friedrich Torberg .
content
The bureaucracy satire is about Kasimir Blaumilch, a mentally ill man who has escaped from the insane asylum, who promptly begins to tear open the main thoroughfare, Allenby Road in Tel Aviv, with a jackhammer. When the police began to block the street, and residents began to complain about the practically uninterrupted noise, the authorities began an extensive but unsuccessful search for the cause. The head of the department for repairs on the main roads, a Dr. Kwibischewsky knows nothing, and so those involved in the city administration and the building ministry are pushing the buck until the matter finally ends up in an investigative court. In order to end this embarrassment and to speed up the work, the entire construction team of the city is ordered to this construction site. Coincidence would have it that blue milk with its jackhammer reaches the sea immediately during the process, so that the masses of water flow into the middle of the city of Tel Aviv.
Finally, the mayor proudly opens the new inner city canal and praises the city as the “Venice of the Middle East”, so that in the end all the storylines dissolve in the positive. The only exception is the magistrate's employee Benzion Ziegler, who alone saw through the absurd background of the construction work. Ironically, as one does not want to believe him in view of the omnipresent canal euphoria, he is admitted to the psychiatric ward. On the drive to the psychiatric hospital, Ziegler sees Kasimir Blaumilch starting to tear open a street with the town hall in the background. They perceive each other and laugh at each other.
Everyday official absurdities are spun further and further into the crazy, but in such a way that the reader only realizes at the end how bizarre the situation described coolly is.
filming
In 1969, the material was filmed by the production companies Sender Free Berlin and Canal Plus under the same title . According to the SFB, the premiere took place on August 14, 1970 in Berlin.
The satire
Kishon's book The Washing Machine Is Human, too, and its title Turn Around, Ms. Lot! contain a satire entitled Der Blaumilch-Kanal . In terms of content, it is essentially a summary of the radio play.