The swapped queen
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The swapped queen |
| Country of production | GDR |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1984 |
| length | 74 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK o. A. |
| Rod | |
| Director | Dieter Scharfenberg |
| script | Dieter Scharfenberg Gerd Gericke (Dramaturgy) |
| production | DEFA , KAG "Johannisthal" |
| music | Christian Steyer |
| camera | Hans-Jürgen Kruse |
| cut | Christa Helwig |
| occupation | |
| |
The swapped queen is a DEFA fairy tale film by Dieter Scharfenberg from 1984 with Ursula Karusseit in a double role as imperious queen and good-natured blacksmith Hanne. It is loosely based on the art fairy tale The Shoemaker's Wife as Tsarina by Andrei Platonow .
action
An always grumpy queen lives in a castle, tyrannically keeping her servants in check, passing inhuman judgments at random and only treating her court jester Bartholomew in a somewhat humane way. When she sees the beautiful long hair of her maid Marie, she has it cut and made a wig for herself . Gunner Jörg has to wake her up every morning with a cannon shot, but when he addresses her without due respect and lets the first shot be followed by a second, she gives instructions to let him hang on the gallows that evening. It is only thanks to Bartholomäus' commitment that Jörg escapes death and receives daily lashes for it. He also has to get the second cannonball back. He goes to the village blacksmith, in whose duck pond the ball falls every morning, and receives the life-saving ball back. He also meets the blacksmith Hanne, who, to his astonishment, looks like the queen's face. In the evening Jörg and Bartholomäus plan a plot: During the night, Hanne is to be secretly exchanged for the queen and to rule in her place for a few days.
The exchange succeeds unnoticed and the next day the queen wakes up in the forge while Hanne lies in the bed of the royal palace. The blacksmith does not realize that he is not dealing with his wife and is amazed and increasingly horrified when his wife behaves like mad, calls herself queen, refuses any tenderness and does not want to prepare any food. She is reluctant to scrub his back in the evening and the food that has been prepared is inedible. After a short time of irritation, Hanne, in turn, goes over to rule, abolishes the despotic laws of the queen and mixes with her subordinates. In the kitchen she tastes all the dishes and in the evening gives a lavish party in which all the castle residents take part. She has long been able to bring Bartholomew to reveal his trick and is therefore not surprised when the submissive court marshal tells her that he has arrested a doppelganger. The queen had previously penetrated the castle and after a brief resistance was thrown into the dungeon. There she is guarded by Jörg. The blacksmith has also followed his supposed wife and frees her, but Jörg finally opens his eyes. While the queen hurries to her bedroom, the blacksmith meets Hanne on the throne and embraces her. Together they take a quick look at the queen in her bedroom and leave.
The next morning the queen wakes up in her usual bedroom. She is tearful because she was woken up by a cannon shot that now seems too loud to her. Whining and meek, she tells Bartholomew about her terrible nightmare , in which she thought she was in hell, and goes back to sleep.
production
The swapped queen was the second fairy tale film by the director Dieter Scharfenberg after Der Spiegel des great Magus from 1981. Unlike his first film, he shot The Reversed Queen entirely in the studio. The studio atmosphere and the associated “theatrical character” of the film with painted backdrops were sometimes negatively mentioned by the critics, while other critics praised the “imaginative ..., extremely practical ... set design by Paul Lehmann”. The film ran in GDR cinemas on May 11, 1984; the premiere ceremony took place on May 13, 1984 in the Berlin Colosseum .
The fairy tale film was often viewed as a film comedy, so director Scharfenberg also found that the film was “actually a comedy of confusion with hearty humor, an unsentimental fairy tale”. Although the basic situation is taken from the art fairy tale Die Schusterfrau als Tsarina by Andrej Platonow , the film was described by critics as an independent work based on a script by director Scharfenberg.
criticism
Contemporary critics complained that the film had “a few flaws”, including “an overly obvious tendency towards caricature in the weighty figure of the court marshal” and tempo errors within the plot, but nevertheless stated that The Exchanged Queen “was an ideal fairytale film, modern , socially accurate and comprehensible, funny and cunning, full of wonder and reality at the same time. ”Other critics also praised the humor of the film and found that“ the little work of the deeper meaning is not lacking ”. The swapped queen is "a fairy tale film of special quality, which ties in with the top achievements of DEFA in this field," according to New Germany in 1984.
Critics after 1990 said, on the one hand, that the plot offered little, the introduction was lengthy and the end "strangely undecided ...". There is no development of the characters. Exactly the opposite is the opinion that "briskness and speed in the process [...] determine the first third of the story". Numerous reviews positively highlighted the performance of the ensemble and especially the dual role of Ursula Karusseits .
The lexicon of the international film saw in The Exchange Queen a "[b] ravishly played, conventional variation of the ancient fairy tale motif of the poor doppelganger, who is endowed with good character traits."
literature
- The swapped queen . In: Eberhard Berger, Joachim Gliese (Ed.): 77 fairy tale films. A movie guide for young and old . Henschel Verlag, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-362-00447-4 , pp. 116-118.
- The swapped queen . In: DEFA Foundation (ed.): The DEFA fairy tale films . Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-00-032589-2 , pp. 206-211.
- F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 667-668 .
- The swapped queen . 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. 328-330.
Web links
- The Queen exchanged in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The swapped queen at filmportal.de
- The swapped queen at the DEFA Foundation
Individual evidence
- ↑ For example, “The painted backdrops are a drawback…” In: Ingelore König, Dieter Wiedemann, Lothar Wolf (ed.): Between Marx and Muck. DEFA films for children . Henschel, Berlin 1996, p. 329.
- ↑ a b c The exchanged queen . In: Eberhard Berger, Joachim Gliese (Ed.): 77 fairy tale films. A movie guide for young and old . Henschel Verlag, Berlin 1990, p. 118.
- ↑ As a newcomer to the Royal Bed . In: Filmspiegel , No. 14, 1983.
- ^ Hans-Dieter Tok With wit and imagination . In: Wochenpost , No. 23, 1984.
- ^ Margit Voss in: Berliner Rundfunk , May 27, 1984.
- ↑ KJ Wendlandt: Cheerful, imaginative game of confusion . In: Neues Deutschland , May 15, 1984.
- ↑ The swapped queen . In: Ingelore König, Dieter Wiedemann, Lothar Wolf (eds.): Between Marx and Muck. DEFA films for children . Henschel, Berlin 1996, p. 329.
- ↑ The swapped queen. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed August 2, 2018 .