The Bockerer (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The Bockerer |
| Country of production | Germany , Austria |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1981 |
| length | 104 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Franz Antel |
| script |
HC Artmann Kurt Nachmann |
| production | Franz Antel |
| music | Gerhard Heinz |
| camera | Ernst W. Kalinke |
| cut | Irene Tomschik |
| occupation | |
| |
| chronology | |
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Successor → |
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Der Bockerer is an Austrian feature film from 1981 by Franz Antel , based on the play Der Bockerer by Ulrich Becher and Peter Preses . Wiener Schmäh tells the fate of the Viennese butcher Karl Bockerer during the Nazi era from 1938 to 1945. As a fundamentally apolitical person, he is uncomprehending about the events after the Anschluss . Karl Bockerer refuses to participate in the leadership cult of the Nazi era and to deny his previous friends, such as the Jewish lawyer Rosenblatt or the socialist Hermann. He has to see how his wife is fascinated by the Nazi propaganda and his son Hans becomes an SA man. The Bockerer is not a resistance fighter, but goes his own way in the tradition of picaresque novels with his naivety and humanity, and the regime dismisses him as a relatively harmless nut.
action
The film begins with historical black and white footage from the annexation of Austria to the German Reich , which is in color for the first scene: A German soldier enters the butcher's shop and asks for a sausage in Berlin-style , but after communication difficulties , he finally receives a portion of meatloaf from Karl Bockerer : "Aba net wei'ra free us hot, sundern wei'ra ma is sympathetic!"
Then Bockerer wants to send his son Hansi to the wife of the court counselor to deliver the Leberkäs there for the regular card games in small groups - his son has known his daughter Elisabeth more closely for some time. But this one has no time. It turns out that he has been a member of the SA for a long time and now has other tasks to attend to. Despite this unpleasant news for him, the Bockerer is looking forward to the weekly tarot evening with his wife, Mr. Hatzinger and the Jew Dr. Rosenblatt, who tells him that he will emigrate to the USA due to the Nuremberg Laws .
A few days later, Hansi in SA uniform, under the supervision of his superior Gstettner, lets Jews mop the floor in a park until he sees his father approaching the square. Out of shame, Hansi hastily orders the Jews to form two rows and to continue elsewhere. Bockerer, who narrowly missed the scene, wants to help a Jew who remains lying on the ground, whereupon a police officer orders the disturbed butcher to move away.
One morning the Bockerer wakes up and finds that his wife is not at home. Irritated, he searches the whole apartment until he realizes that it is April 20th and therefore his birthday. His wife's bouquet of flowers, which he had forgotten on the table - which she wanted to present to the Gauleiter on the occasion of the celebration of Führer's birthday - was mistakenly interpreted as a present for himself. He wants to open his shop full of energy. But again a police officer prevents him from doing his job, as this date is also Adolf Hitler's birthday and therefore all shops have to remain closed. At that moment he realizes that his family has forgotten his birthday. Only his old friend Hatzinger thought of his birthday.
When the Bockerer said goodbye to his Jewish friend Rosenblatt - who took the opportunity to leave the country - at Vienna's Westbahnhof , he met his friend Hermann, with whom he arranged to meet for a wine tavern "for a glass of glass" . There Bockerer and Hermann, an old acquaintance who, as a communist, are already targeted by the Gestapo , have an argument with some German guests. By chance, Gstettner's department is also present and Hansi is given the task of detaining Hermann and the Bockerer. The Bockerer is horrified that his own son is facing him with the gun. He is supposed to guard the two, after an inner struggle with his sense of duty, he lets his father go with his friend Hermann. Gstettner does not believe that the two simply escaped, but covers Hansi because of an affection that goes beyond the service.
Bockerer finally has to appear for interrogation at the Gestapo, where he loudly doubts the legality of his treatment. Shortly before he is to be taken away, Gstettner calls (independent of time, but at Hansi's request) and suggests twisting the facts a little so that the Bockerer can leave.
Meanwhile, Hermann is captured and sent to the Dachau concentration camp , where he dies from an "accident at work". When Bockerer later asked his widow about Hermann, she explained it to him. She hands him a letter stating, among other things, that Hermann could be captured "thanks to Bockerer's statement". Bockerer is beside himself and gives the widow money to request the urn with her husband's ashes. Then he goes to the “Tosca” café and looks for Hansi, who previously fought off the advances made by his superior Gstettner. There is a heated argument between father and son, during which the Bockerer throws his son out of his house.
Hansi subsequently leaves the SA and returns to his girlfriend Elisabeth, with whom he then moves in. Gstettner feels ungrateful and intrigued, so that Hansi has to go to the Russian front - to Stalingrad . Elisabeth mediates the reconciliation with his father. During this discussion he revealed to his father that he was going to marry his Elisabeth on his first home leave. Soon, however, the notification comes that he has fallen.
The transition from the Nazi regime to the occupation of Austria by the Allies is shown again with commented original recordings. The councilor, who volunteers at the family reunification authority, brings the child of Elisabeth, who was killed in a bomb attack, the little Karl, the grandchild of the Bockerers, to the butcher's shop. Mr. Rosenblatt is also returning to Vienna as a member of the Allied Army and so Bockerer can finally open a tarot game again with the sentence “Your sheet, Mr. Rosenblatt!”.
Production notes
Franz Antel was inspired to make his film by a performance of the play Der Bockerer in the Volkstheater . Within six weeks he had secured the financing and put together his ensemble. Herta Hareiter set up a butcher's shop and apartment in a demolished building . After five weeks of shooting, the demolition company was able to start its work, so that, as foreseen in the script, a ruin that seemed to have been damaged by bombs was finally available.
The scene in which Jews have to clean the pavement was filmed in Obkirchergasse in Vienna's 19th district , while the scene in which prisoners are transported to the police building on trucks was shot at the Rossauer Lände police station . The film premiered on March 19, 1981 in the Apollo cinema in Vienna .
reception
For years, Antel had sporadically tried to correct his image as a director of trivial comedies with quite ambitious productions, but it was only with Der Bockerer that he received the hoped-for recognition. Federal President Rudolf Kirchschläger congratulated him on this film, and the Ministry of Education presented it in a separate cinema at the Cannes Film Festival . There Antel received an invitation to the Moscow Film Festival . In Moscow, Antel and lead actor Merkatz were enthusiastically celebrated. In November there was then a separate premiere for the German Bundestag in Bonn. In 1981 Der Bockerer was nominated for an Oscar as an Austrian contribution , but lost to Mephisto in 1982 in the competition for the best foreign film .
The audience response was limited, especially the cinema audience in the Federal Republic of Germany showed little interest. Antel suspected that he had been resented “that we portrayed the Germans as nobody wants to be today”, especially since the film was made without any German participation. In the GDR, however, the Bockerer was an unexpected success.
Reviews
Despite the international recognition for his film, Antel found that the local press was sticking to its usual derogatory judgment against Antel films. An article appeared in Profil magazine in which Antel was described as the “homeland old master of shallow filmmaking,” who could have easily spared the audience his film. The cinema version lacks "the explosiveness that has made all stage performances of the play so oppressive so far". Emotion is constantly mistaken for sentimentality.
The lexicon of international films means that the film is "stuck to the outdated patterns of the popular play", so that it offers "an ultimately tame spectacle".
Awards
In 1981 Karl Merkatz was named Best Actor at the Moscow International Film Festival , and Franz Antel was nominated for a Golden Prize .
1982 karl merkatz got a German Film Prize award as Best Actor .
Film series
Fifteen years later, the film was followed by another of a total of three parts (The Bockerer series).
The film series consists of four parts:
- Part 1: The Bockerer (1981)
- Part 2: The Bockerer II - Austria is Free (1996)
- Part 3: The Bockerer III - The Andau Bridge (2000)
- Part 4: The Bockerer IV - Prague Spring (2003)
Web links
- The Bockerer in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The Bockerer at filmportal.de
Individual evidence
- ^ Franz Antel: Twisted, in love, my life , Munich, Vienna 2001, p. 225 ff.
- ^ Franz Antel: Twisted, in love, my life , Munich, Vienna 2001, p. 232.
- ^ Franz Antel: Twisted, in love, my life , Munich, Vienna 2001, p. 237.
- ^ Franz Antel: Twisted, in love, my life , Munich, Vienna 2001, p. 230
- ↑ The Bockerer. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed July 21, 2017 .