The lottery swede
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The lottery swede |
| Country of production | GDR |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1958 |
| length | 71 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Hans Joachim Kunert |
| script | Hans Joachim Kunert Jens Gerlach |
| production | DEFA |
| music | André Asriel |
| camera | Otto Merz |
| cut | Hildegard Conrad |
| occupation | |
| |
The lottery Swede is a German film adaptation of DEFA of Hans Joachim Kunert from the year 1958 after a novel by the Danish writer Martin Andersen Nexo .
action
The lonely Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea in 1880 is gray and cold. Here the quarry worker Johan Jönnson leads a poor life with his wife and children. Even his son's work in the quarry is not enough to be able to live tolerably. In his distress, Johan hopes for a lottery ticket and its winnings to improve his living conditions. Since this is a serial lot, the seller forces him to always buy a new one. But the daily misery leads him more and more often to go to the restaurant after work to indulge in alcohol.
When his very young child became seriously ill, he had no more money to pay the doctor because he had just bought another ticket. Although the doctor wanted to see the child without immediate payment, the child came too late. In his desperation, Johan tried his luck in the pub playing dice and when the cash ran out, he used his lottery ticket. But he also lost the other games and thus his lot. After the next drawing, his number was drawn and he was congratulated on all sides for winning. But the lot was no longer his. Once at the bottom, Johan takes his own life in the quarry.
Meanwhile, his son Per has understood that gambling is not the means to change the wretched lives of workers and manages to start new lives.
production
Lottery Swede premiered on September 11, 1958 in the Babylon cinema in Berlin . The start of GDR television was on June 28, 1960 in the DFF .
criticism
Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler writes in the Filmspiegel that this is a harrowing film and that it would have to be described as bleak if these appalling working and living conditions of the eighties had not been alleviated today by the struggle of the working class under capitalism and overcome under socialism. The director laid out all of this in the epic breadth of the novella, often too broad, too long, and with too little tension. The film-dienst called the film Der Lotterieschwede the chamber play-like attempt at a realistic portrayal of the tough environment, which despite good actors is not convincing in all respects. The intended overarching social charge is pushed back in favor of the portrayal of an individual's fate.
literature
- F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 371 .
Web links
- The lottery Swede in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Lotterieschwede at filmportal.de
- The lottery swede at the DEFA foundation
Individual evidence
- ^ Film review by Karl-Eduard v. Schnitzler in: Eulenspiegel No. 20/1958
- ↑ The Lottery Swede. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .