The fat man and me

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title The fat man and me
Country of production GDR
original language German
Publishing year 1981
length 76 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Karl Heinz Lotz
script Karl Heinz Lotz
Scenario: Jens Bahre , Karl Heinz Lotz
Dramaturgy: Gabriele Kotte
production DEFA , "Red Circle" group
music Marcelo Fortin
camera Claus Neumann
cut Barbara Simon
occupation

The fat and me is a German children's film by DEFA by Karl Heinz Lotz from 1981 . It is based on the children's book of the same name by Jens Bahre , who was also involved in the script.

action

During a holiday in the Baltic Sea, 9-year-old Flori learns that his parents want to divorce. He and his 16-year-old brother Jörg will live with their mother. Although the father stayed in nearby Berlin , he agreed with the mother to completely withdraw from the lives of the sons. However, he promises Flori regular visits and a new Baltic holiday next year. The football-mad Flori believes the promises.

One day the mother sets the dinner table for four. The fourth turns out not to be the father, but rather her colleague Jens, whom Flori only calls "the fat one" due to his strong figure. Flori rebels against the new man in her mother's life, who also regularly spends the night in the apartment. He begins to make life difficult for the fat man, rejects his friendliness, deflates the car tires and acts cheekily. At school he says that his father visits him every week, which in the end leads to a fight with his best friend, Ofen, who knows better. The fat man endures the hostility of the boy without complaint and even gives him 20 marks when he demands it. At some point, however, his patience is exhausted, as he has done everything to convince Flori of himself. The fat man and the mother are considering separating, and the fat man leaves when the boy has once again treated him disrespectfully.

Flori likes to play pranks with his friend Ofen, but he also uses him to water the flowers on the balcony. When they both want to take it easy for themselves and pour the plant bowls from a bucket, one of the bowls falls down and falls on the car window of the fat man who has just pulled up. The fat man loses his temper: when Flori claims it wasn't him, he slaps him. Flori later learns from his mother that she and the fat man have separated and that they can no longer see each other. Flori experiences his first love with Ramona and his brother Jörg also has a girlfriend in Sandra. Over time, Flori had a bad conscience and he confessed to his mother that he didn't want the flower box. She just makes it clear to him that his apologies are in the wrong place with her. Shortly afterwards, Flori receives a letter from the fat man. In it he writes that he did not want to hit him; if he wrongly accused him, he would be sorry. Shortly afterwards, the fat man visits the family. Flori apologizes to him and the fat man admits that he has simply lost patience. The family is slowly approaching. During the big move, which the mother and the two children will take from the old building to a new housing estate, both the fat man and the father help out. The five of them drink coffee before Flori says goodbye to his father and drives the fat man to the new settlement in the moving truck.

production

The fat man and I were filmed on Darß and in Potsdam-Babelsberg, among other places, until spring 1981 . Filming locations in Babelsberg were Nowawes , the Babelsberg Park with the Flatow Tower and the then new development area Zentrum Ost. Barbara Braumann created the costumes and Georg Kranz designed the film . The film premiered on December 13, 1981 in Berlin's Colosseum and had already been shown in GDR cinemas two days earlier. On January 2, 1983, GDR 1 showed the film for the first time on GDR television; on March 5, 1983, he was to be seen on the ZDF and on television in Germany.

It was the directorial debut of Karl Heinz Lotz, who cast his own son Gregor in the role of Flori. He himself has a cameo as a carousel owner at the fair. Petr Skarke as the father was voiced by Jaecki Schwarz .

criticism

The contemporary critics were ambivalent about the film. The “disciplined, independent approach to everyday life” that director Lotz showed was praised. The film tells its story "with pleasant, comfortable accuracy and carefully portraying normality". The New Germany found the “consciously factual and cool narrative style”, which made a dramatic occurrence for the child an everyday occurrence, as worthy of criticism, since the author, dramaturge and director “owed their own point of view on this moral conflict”. Other critics have suggested that the conflict in the film is approached calmly, but not without passion. Renate Holland-Moritz wrote that the film had "never-ending ... passages of boredom".

The federal German film service called Der Dicke und I a "thematically noteworthy directorial debut, artistically average, but with promising approaches in setting the milieu, actor management and conflict awareness."

literature

  • F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 113 .
  • The fat man and me . In: Ingelore König, Dieter Wiedemann, Lothar Wolf (eds.): Between Marx and Muck. DEFA films for children . Henschel, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-89487-234-9 , pp. 289-291.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tim Trende: My three fathers and me . In: Filmspiegel , No. 7, 1981, p. 28.
  2. ↑ Tim Trende: My three fathers and me . In: Filmspiegel , No. 7, 1981, p. 29.
  3. ↑ See Der Dicke and I on defa.de
  4. ↑ Hans Braunseis in Der Morgen , January 2, 1982.
  5. ↑ Horst Knietzsch: Children and the art of living in the family . In: Neues Deutschland , December 14, 1981.
  6. ^ Heinz Hofmann in: Nationalzeitung , December 18, 1981.
  7. ^ Renate Holland-Moritz: cinema owl . In Eulenspiegel , No. 7, 1982.
  8. ↑ The fat man and me. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used