The Bockerer II - Austria is free
Der Bockerer II - Austria is free is an Austrian feature film from 1996 by Franz Antel . It is the second part of the Der Bockerer series.
action
In occupied Vienna in the post-war years , it was again Karl Bockerer who defied the ruling powers in a charming and defiant manner. This time his doggedness is directed against the Soviet occupiers. The Bockerer II shows the dreary situation in Austria after the war, in which the liberated could not feel free for a long time.
Bockerer does business with the Soviet occupiers, but repeatedly siphons off smaller amounts of meat, which he donates to a children's home . Meanwhile, Gustl, returning from the war, falls into the clutches of Gstettner, who tries to cover up his Nazi past and, together with the Soviet Major Popov, engages in surreptitious trading. Bockerer met the young interpreter Elena from the Red Army at the Soviet headquarters . When she learns that her father died in a camp in Siberia , she decides to desert and turns to Bockerer for help. The only thing that could save her was marrying an Austrian and fleeing to the American occupation zone . Bockerer is therefore looking for an Austrian who will marry Elena for a fee, and so ends up with Gstettner, who was responsible for the death of Bockerer's son in the war , and Gustl, who is forced by Gstettner into a planned marriage of convenience . When Bockerer realizes Gstettner, there is a heated argument and both are arrested by Soviet soldiers. While Gstettner and Major Popov to Siberia deported are Bockerer comes thanks to Major Nowotny, an old friend who once from Vienna to the Soviet Union emigrated , was free. Meanwhile, Gustl and Elena get to know each other and fall in love - at first without knowing that they were the partners intended for each other as part of the planned marriage of convenience. Bockerer helps Gustl and Elena escape to the American occupation zone with new papers . Through his selfless commitment, the love adventure comes to a happy happy ending and he and his friends can calmly devote themselves to taroting on Thursdays . In the end, the viewer still has a view of free Austria and of course the surrender to the proverbial liberating humor of Karl Bockerer.
Production notes
Franz Antel had repeatedly been urged to continue the Bockerer , but financing the project turned out to be a major problem. Funding was secured not least through the commitment of leading politicians, including Federal Chancellor Franz Vranitzky , Mayor Michael Häupl , Governor Erwin Pröll and Federal President Thomas Klestil .
Antel was very careful to be true to the original and therefore hired an actor from Moscow to play the role of the Russian general. On the ninth day of shooting, a key scene in the Russian headquarters was on the agenda, and the Palais Epstein had been equipped with a huge Soviet star and an oversized picture of Stalin. Then Antel learned that the German Chancellor Helmut Kohl was making an official visit to Vienna, and so he had the communist symbols veiled in order not to risk an incident. The film was finished on time.
At the request of the Federal Chancellor, the premiere took place on the Austrian national holiday , when a thousand spectators gathered in Vienna's Apollo Theater . When 83-year-old Antel stepped in front of the microphone at the premiere party in the town hall, he received a minute-long ovation.
Awards
- Austrian Film Prize 1997
- Romy 1997 for the most successful Austrian film
- Audience award from the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania at the Schwerin Film Festival
Web links
- The Bockerer II - Austria is free in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The Bockerer II - Austria is free , filminstitut.at
- The Bockerer II - Austria is free , film.at
- The Bockerer II - Austria is free , epofilm.com
Individual evidence
- ^ Franz Antel: Twisted, in love, my life , Munich, Vienna 2001, p. 275 ff.