The Philosopher (1988)

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Movie
Original title The philosopher
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1988
length 83 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Rudolf Thome
script Rudolf Thome
production Rudolf Thome
music Hanno Rinné
camera Reinhold Vorneider
cut Dörte Völz-Mammarella
occupation
chronology

←  Predecessor
The microscope

The Philosopher is a West German feature film from 1988, written, produced and directed by Rudolf Thome . In it an ascetic philosopher from West Berlin is led by three caring and occasionally naked graces from the pallor of thought to Dionysian joys. Critics were divided on whether the work, alluding to ancient philosophy and mythology, was profound or superficial, with the first half of the film being judged better than the second. Based on The Microscope and Before Seven Women, the philosopher forms the middle section of Thome's trilogy “Forms of Love”. The Filmförderungsanstalt contributed 60,000 German marks to the production of the film, which opened in theaters on January 5, 1989.

action

Georg Hermes, a thin man in his mid-thirties from West Berlin, is a philosopher. He did his doctorate on the saying “ Everything flows ” from Heraclitus . The polite, unworldly man, immersed in books, lives alone eight years after the death of his mother. He can neither swim nor drive a car. The publishing house Vittorio Klostermann published his book “Die Liebe zur Weisheit. A guide to thinking ”printed, in a few days he is supposed to give a reading. To do this, he wants to buy a good suit and enters a fashion store. The three saleswomen he meets there hang on his heels and attend the reading. Then Franziska, Beate and Martha introduce themselves to him and invite him, whom they adore, to come over for Sunday.

The three women entertain him in their shared apartment on the Spree , where he likes it very much. Step by step they lead the ascetic to pleasure and sensuality. After the visit, he writes a love letter to Franziska. He rowed with her across the Schlachtensee , where he fell into the water, but had to be rescued by her for lack of swimming skills. After taking off her wet clothes, she sleeps with the hitherto virgin Georg. She manages to get him to move into her shared apartment. The women let him have a room and buy a computer that he should use instead of a typewriter to write his texts; Beate teaches him how to use it. When she takes him to her bed, undresses him and lies down on him, he breaks off because he loves Franziska. But Franziska explains to him that all people can love one another, that he should sleep with all three of them. The three of them were "time agents", ambassadors who had to find him, but he now had to find himself. Georg doubts the miracle that is happening to him and leaves the community for a few days to calmly think about everything. He soon has a high fever and calls Franziska to pick him up. Under the care of the three women, he recovers very quickly. The four of them drive to the shores of the Wannsee , where they dance ecstatically.

Reviews

Jürgen Richter from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung saw the three women as "hunters of the pleasure system" who tie a free man to themselves. He could submit with relish without “feeling the bad conscience of the macho in this dream”, as the emancipated Amazons “created this harem situation themselves.” Richter spoke of an “unpretentious overall performance” and a “comedic act of cross-cutting Role behavior and expectations in which spectacular gags would be out of place. ”In Hellmuth Karasek's opinion, Rudolf Thome“ doesn't just want to live out the paschal dream of an intellectual ”, but rather“ teach the audience that nothing makes people so little happy as perfect happiness ”. It is true that the film begins “so relaxed, cheerful, effortless” and the women are sexually happy. Later, however, he loses his "voyeur-like appetite for the Graces", which are now to time female agents, wander in "German profundity", and poke to the attached end "tough in the sense of life around." Unlike understood Norbert Grob from the time the work . Thome's films were aimed at viewers who thought ahead and only took the images, which leave their meaning open, as “preliminary sketches”. Therefore one should be careful not to take the talk of "Zeitagentinnen" and "Göterbote" literally; The story does not have a deeper meaning, rather it is a fairy tale with mystery. The philosopher offers a hero with "unusual charm", previously unknown in the cinema, whose essence is "directed against the obvious". Unfortunately, towards the end, "the explanatory dialogues."

Rainer Gansera from epd Film found it strange that although the main character developed from a poor and shy one to sensuality and sovereignty, the style of the film took the opposite direction. After “a sensual presence and coherence”, “at the same time delicate and sharp” and a “concentrated lightness” at the beginning, it becomes increasingly pale and shadowy. Thome begins to "dilute women into the artificial mythological" and lose his imagination. The Fischer Film Almanach agreed with Gansera's judgment of the style and advised against taking the film too literally or philosophizing about its content. The film service denied that Thome was telling the story with “thoughtful profundity”, rather he found the weighted film too easy. “If Thome's variant of love were meant realistically, it would be easy prey for scoffers of all stripes.” But everyday or social problems hardly occur, the story is a “weightless nothingness from which there are always hints of humor for the subtle in the audience . Since the times of the Greek gods, myths as well as philosophers have lost their power and relevance. ”In addition to harmonious images, there are also platitudes such as the penetrating water motif or the dance at the end.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for The Philosopher . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , May 2011 (PDF; test number: 60 969 V).
  2. ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 18, 1988, S: 27: Around three million. Funding of nine films
  3. ↑ Jürgen Richter: The hostage of lust . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , June 6, 1989, p. 34.
  4. ↑ Hellmuth Karasek: Too much luck . In: Der Spiegel , No. 1/1989, p. 137.
  5. ↑ Norbert Grob: The human soul is like water . In: Die Zeit , February 17, 1989
  6. ^ Rainer Gansera: The philosopher . In: epd Film , No. 2/1989, p. 27.
  7. ^ Fischer Film Almanach 1990. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1990, ISBN 3-596-10235-9 , pp. 309-310.
  8. ↑ film-dienst No. 8/1989, drawn by "KEH"