The golden years are over

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Movie
Original title The golden years are over
Country of production Germany
Austria
original language German
Publishing year 2004
length 127 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Hans Weingartner
script Katharina Held
Hans Weingartner (Y3 film)
production Hans Weingartner
Antonin Svoboda ( coop99 )
music Andreas Wodraschke
camera Daniela Knapp
Matthias Schellenberg
cut Dirk Oetelshofen
Andreas Wodraschke
occupation

The fat years are over is a feature film by Austrian director Hans Weingartner from 2004. Using the example of three young people who inadvertently become kidnappers, Weingartner's second film revolves around the topics of political engagement, morality, friendship and love. It also reflects the experiences of the director who had tried several times - unsuccessfully - to become politically active in the previous ten years.

Daniel Brühl , Stipe Erceg , Julia Jentsch and Burghart Klaußner play the leading roles in the film, which has received several awards and nominations. Its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival received a standing ovation . The final sequence originally intended by Weingartner is missing in the film version that is widely used today.

action

Jan, Peter and Jule are in their mid-twenties and live in Berlin . The two young men, who recently moved into a shared apartment for two , have developed guerrilla tactics with which they want to unsettle the rich “bigwigs”. You break into luxury villas whose alarm systems Peter knows, but you don't steal anything, but rearrange the interior and leave the message behind. The fat years are over or you have too much money. The legal guardians . - Peter's friend Jule, who occasionally takes part in public protests, had to turn her life upside down a year earlier. A rear-end collision caused by her uninsured car left her with a debt of 100,000 euros to the owner of a Mercedes-Benz S-Class . Since then she has been studying teaching and working as a waitress in a posh restaurant. Her situation came to a head after she was given notice of her job and apartment within a few days. When the date for the handover of the apartment was brought forward at short notice, she canceled a joint Barcelona trip with Peter and let him go alone. Instead, Jan helps her with the renovation. The two get to know each other better and get closer. Jan finally reveals to her what he does secretly with Peter at night and shows her the villa in Berlin-Zehlendorf that he is currently spying on.

Jule electrifies the fact that the property of her creditor Justus Hardenberg is also nearby and apparently nobody is at home there. After checking the alarm system, Jan lets himself into a break-in. Animated by Jules high spirits, he goes further than usual and falls into the water himself while trying to lower the huge couch in the pool; he follows Jule and they have fun. The first, passionate kiss is followed by a hasty escape when Jule accidentally switches on the outside lights and the dogs in the neighborhood start beating. - The next day she missed her cell phone. Together with Jan she dares a second break-in. Hardenberg surprises Jule, recognizes her and tries to overwhelm her. Jan rushes over and knocks him unconscious with the flashlight. Then they call Peter for help. While they are discussing, Hardenberg manages, despite being shackled, to call a police emergency number, whereupon they panicked and kidnap him. In a remote alpine hut belonging to Jules Onkel high above the Tyrolean Achensee , they can be accommodated unnoticed.

At the beginning, a certain role behavior is established. Jule, who resisted the kidnapping, feels responsible to save Hardenberg from the worst; Peter makes suggestions how to deal with him practically; Jan, the spokesman in discussions, attacks his worldview. It soon turns out to be not that firmly established. Hardenberg even admits to being an old 68er , talks about earlier ideals and his flat share life with frequently changing relationships. Perhaps he's just tactical; In any case, he shows himself to be cooperative and achieved, not least through a comment about " Free Love " that the focus shifts to the hidden relationship between Jan and Jule, which has deepened further. Peter confronts both of them, breaks with them in anger, leaves, but comes back at night - drunk -. With their moral fiasco in mind, they break off the kidnapping and bring Hardenberg back to Berlin. Before saying goodbye to them as if they were friends, he hands Jule a handwritten waiver of her debts to him and promises to leave the police out of the game. Jule and Peter keep Jan from ending their joint commitment entirely and decide on a triple alliance.

In a parallel montage, the short showdown shows how, in the presence of Hardenberg, a huge special task force of the police takes up position in front of Jan and Peter's house and prepares to storm their flat shares, while the trio can be seen quietly sleeping in a bed (in Hint of a ménage-à-trois ), Jule gets up at a knock and opens the door to a Spanish-speaking maid - not the one that the police in Berlin forcibly blow up to get into an apartment that has been completely empty, except for one Message on the wall: Some people never change .

Final sequence

There is one more sequence that Weingartner originally intended to be the last. It shows how the three in a yacht that Hardenberg owns (shown on his boat license with name and picture) set off for a Mediterranean island with the aim of paralyzing the important control systems for television satellites and thus television reception throughout Europe. The end credits collapse with a noise like a plug is being pulled and just stay black, whereas before it looked like a not-so-high-quality broadcast from a satellite channel.

Weingartner had not yet finished this final sequence for the world premiere of the film in Cannes . But because the distribution rights in 44 other countries had already been sold, he did not want to force them on the foreign partners afterwards. The shortened version of the film later also caught on in German-speaking countries.

main characters

The main actors
Daniel Bruehl 6021.jpg
Daniel Brühl (Jan)
Stipe Erceg.png
Stipe Erceg (Peter)
Julia Jentsch Berlinale 2008.jpg
Julia Jentsch (Jule)

Jan is the head of the trio and the driving force behind the guerrilla acts committed against the rich together with Peter . He is a technician, quick-witted capitalism critic and, above all, a rigorous moralist. His fight against injustice and abuse of power is based on a rationally and emotionally grown, stable attitude. He bravely helps a defenseless homeless man , encourages Jule to be more rebellious, does not turn a blind eye if his best friend fails, and finally goes to court with himself when he becomes aware of the breach of trust that his secret relationship is causing Jule means for this very best friend. The viewer may not judge him in the same way, as a very natural love that is enriching for both develops before his eyes. Jan becomes softer, more balanced through them.

Peter is more of a doer than theoretician and sees himself as a "cool guy". When things get really tough, he seems to have the best of nerves; He enjoys a situation like suddenly being able to put a pistol on the table at the right moment. Less dogged and missionary than Jan, Peter appears as a “hobby anarchist with a revolutionary pose”. It is easy to imagine that one day he could become part of the fun and consumer society; it is unlikely that he would go on alone as a “legal guardian” of the “bigwigs” if necessary. The moral weight the film gives him is his almost naive trust in friendship; his anger when it is disappointed ensures that the demands on her do not suffer, and his ability to give in ensures that the friendship itself does not break.

The audience gets to know Jule as the first of the trio - during a protest against sweatshops , with which she is publicly, collectively and legally involved. Unlike the two young men, the film places her in a social context, which, however, is consistently negatively influenced by her threefold dependence on employers, landlords and those who have suffered accidents, who all expect only one thing from her: docility. The mountain of 100,000 euros in debt alone is forcing them into an existence for an estimated eight years that takes their former desire to “live wild and free” ad absurdum. Nevertheless, Jule is insecure, vacillates between defiance and resignation, commitment and adaptation, because she does not see “anything in which she can believe” anywhere. Jan leads them out of this dead end. The love for him develops cautiously, but goes all the deeper. Apparently she only shared the bed with Peter, with Jan she rediscovered herself all over again - her impetuous streak as well as her need to pause and calmly reflect.

Reviews

  • Film-Dienst: "Pleasingly committed film narrative about three young rebels, which is convincing not least thanks to great actors."
  • Frankfurter Rundschau: "a refreshing, brilliantly played anti-globalization comedy."
  • Die Welt: "... furiously staged German Cannes representative and rightly winner of the German Film Award for Best Director in Munich, demonstrates what German cinema currently has to say."

Trivia

The statements to be found here are better placed elsewhere in the article if they are adequately documented (see also the explanations in the film format , the recommendations for the structure of an article and the restraint with lists )
  • The film was intentionally shot handheld-style with digital video cameras, which often makes the picture slightly shaky.
  • Across Europe, the film recorded around 1.3 million admissions - of which almost 900,000 in Germany, 70,000 in Austria and 70,000 in Switzerland. The highest number of admissions in non-German-speaking countries was in France and Turkey with 70,000 admissions each.
  • The version of Cohen's Hallelujah interpreted by Jeff Buckley is prominently placed in the film, but not included on the soundtrack. However, there is a version of this song by Lucky Jim .
  • The background music in the DVD menu and in a film trailer is the song Easy to Love by the band Slut without vocals.
  • The film is quoted in episode 314 of the ARD series Polizeiruf 110 . The plot is similar and at one point there is a movie poster.
  • In a short sequence in the film Free Rainer , on a screen, you can see an excerpt from the film with the sentence The fat years are over .
  • The theater production of the same name premiered in Austria in 2013 at the Phönix Theater in Linz .

Awards

As the first German-language production since 1993, the film took part in the Cannes Film Festival in the Palme d'Or competition. There he was celebrated by the audience with standing ovations . In summer 2004, the film was awarded the Bavarian Film Prize in Munich.

Daniel Brühl was nominated for Best Actor at the 2004 European Film Awards, but Javier Bardem had to admit defeat for the film The Sea in Me . The film won the German Film Prize for Best Feature Film in Silver and Burghart Klaußner for Best Supporting Actor . The fat years are over also received a nomination for best director . In 2006 the film received the Chlotrudis Award for Best Cinematic Discovery (Best Buried Treasure).

The German Film and Media Assessment FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the rating “particularly valuable”.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for The fat years are over . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , August 2004 (PDF; test number: 98 975 K).
  2. ↑ a b Film booklet of the Federal Agency for Civic Education , November 23, 2004, accessed on July 29, 2018
  3. ↑ Info in imdb , accessed on July 29, 2018
  4. ^ Andreas Borcholte: Anarchy and everyday life , Spiegel Online , November 25, 2004, accessed on July 29, 2018
  5. ↑ Lumiere - Database of movie attendance figures in Europe