Too skinny for love?
Too skinny for love? is a DEFA youth and music film from 1973. It was the DEFA film debut of the director Bernhard Stephan , who had already made crime series for the television of the GDR , and the young actress Simone von Zglinicki , whose career after this film at the Deutsches Theater began in Berlin.
content
18-year-old Susanne works as a skilled worker in a textile company. She is always helpful, has an open ear for everyone and is socially committed. At home she runs the household for her father and brother. The fact that she also has needs is of secondary importance and is not perceived by her environment either.
Susanne loves Lutz, with whom she grew up and is friends, but he only sees her as the little girl from before. It was only when she found out that her selfish friend Daisy was expecting a child from Lutz that Susanne knew that she had to change her life and not only be there for others. She becomes more self-confident and manages to conquer Lutz despite a few setbacks. Both have a happy time together. Her change ultimately also helps her to let Lutz go when, driven by wanderlust, he goes out into the world.
production
Katharina Thalbach was actually intended for the role of Susanne, but she was pregnant with Anna Thalbach at the time and therefore had to cancel. Instead, Simone von Zglinicki was hired for the main role, who was still a student at the Leipzig Theater Academy at the time.
The city shots were taken in Heiligenstadt and the factory scenes in the cotton spinning and twisting mill in Leinefelde .
The film premiered on April 25, 1974 in the Kosmos film theater in Berlin and was shown for the first time on GDR television two years later . Its premiere in the FRG took place on November 13, 1975 at the International Film Festival in Hof .
Film music
The film was also conceived as a music film due to the numerous titles it contained from various bands and was marketed accordingly. The parallelism of meaningful rock music to the film plot was a novelty in the GDR at the time - alongside the film Die Legende von Paul und Paula , which was filmed at the same time in 1973 .
Most of the lyrics to the music were written by Gerulf Pannach . The film includes titles from the Illés ensemble with Zsuzsa Koncz and the Klaus Renft Combo , the latter with the titles What do people do when they don't carry a flag and When I was like a bird (in a slightly different, faster version than released on LP Renft II ). Furthermore, a title of Klaus-Renft combo used which is otherwise published anywhere: No one is running out / We'll come somehow clear ... . Furthermore, in the film What I lack , and I and the skirt to hear from Renft. In a film scene, the original Hungarian version of the Omega title Unfaithful Friends is played on a BG 20 Smaragd tape recorder . The songs sung in German by the Hungarian band Illes are also rare.
Lightly satirized everyday life in the film
The plot has strong references to everyday real socialist life in the GDR. The first scene shows a typical May demonstration with flag- bearing FDJ members and comrades waving on a grandstand. In addition, long-haired youngsters appear on coiffed mopeds at the May demonstration - a wishful thinking among GDR youths at the time.
The main actress can be seen twice in first aid exercises in the uniform of the German Red Cross . In the company, Susanne is named “One of our best”, and her picture appears on the wall newspaper . In the context of easily understandable German-language rock music, these scenes had a caricatural effect for young, critical minds .
The film implies that the young people feel patronized by these activities: for example by Lutz's wanderlust for western countries and by Susanne's reaction to an interview question about how the “best worker” spends her free time: She says that she likes to do it do nothing. One scene reveals that the young people from the East also worship Che Guevara .
In some scenes one indicates grievances in the system of the GDR, which were later central points in the demands during the turn . Lutz to Susanne: "You also believe everything that is in the newspaper." (Freedom of the press). Susanne astonished and curious about Lutz: "How do you get to Bolivia as a GDR citizen?" (Allusion to Tamara Bunke ). After the park attendant's dog tore Lutz's jeans, the park attendant wanted to get Lutz new pants. Lutz replied: “Man, Grandpa, these are real Levi's !” (Desire for western consumer goods). This sentence achieved cult status among the GDR youth.
In its interplay of rock music and critical approaches, the film hit the nerve of the youth of that time.
criticism
The lexicon of international films wrote: "Despite a few critical approaches, the staid staging seldom gets beyond the privacy that is charmingly filled by the leading actress."
The film service looked too skinny for love? a "[in] entertaining directorial debut of Bernhard Stephan, who was very busy as a TV comedy specialist after 1990".
literature
- Uwe Fleischer: Where love falls: Insights and anecdotes from the film photographer of the DEFA production “Still too skinny for love?” . DEFA Foundation 2009, ISBN 3-00-024361-5 .
- F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 191-192 .
Web links
- Too skinny for love? in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Too skinny for love? at filmportal.de
- Too skinny for love? at the DEFA Foundation
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for Still too skinny for love? Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , January 2008 (PDF; test number: 112 940 DVD).
- ↑ Habel, p. 192
- ↑ Alfred Brehm: Still too thin for love? In: Zelluloid.de. January 24, 2009, archived from the original on December 4, 2016 ; accessed on September 22, 2018 .
- ↑ Too skinny for love? On propramm.ard.de, from August 27, 2012
- ↑ Klaus Brüne (Ed.): Lexicon of International Films . Volume 2. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1990, p. 1164
- ↑ Too skinny for love? In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed September 22, 2018 .