Fallada - Final Chapter
Movie | |
---|---|
Original title | Fallada - Final Chapter |
Country of production | GDR |
original language | German |
Publishing year | 1988 |
length | 101 minutes |
Rod | |
Director | Roland Graef |
script | Helga Schütz |
production | DEFA , KAG "Red Circle" |
music |
Robert Stolz Jean Sibelius |
camera | Roland Dressel |
cut | Monika Schindler |
occupation | |
|
Fallada - Last Chapter is a German feature film from the DEFA studio for feature films by Roland Gräf from 1988 based on motifs from the biography Life and Death of Hans Fallada by Tom Crepon from 1978.
action
In 1937 Hans Fallada drove with his wife Anna to a Berlin film studio, where he was shown excerpts from a documentary about a factory owner. He is supposed to write a scenario for a film about this man, for which he is promised 20,000 marks, which he urgently needs. Since he is not progressing as he would like, Else-Marie Bukonje from Berlin is made available to him to help with the paperwork in Carwitz . His attempts to get closer to her physically fail. When he visits her in her Berlin apartment after the rejection of his manuscript, this time she takes the initiative and so they both still get to bed. His wife Anna takes care of him in these times of deepest depression and endures his aggressions.
One day a policeman stands on the doorstep and wishes to speak to Hans Fallada. He's been given the task of checking Fallada, as it seems likely that he is again taking drugs. Anna looks for him and finds him in the house-maid Anneliese's room, just as he is getting dressed again. He was able to convince the police officer, who was only addicted to alcohol and pills at the time, of his innocence and he accused his wife of having reported him. Anna makes it clear to him, however, that the advertisement comes from Else-Marie Bukonje. This is part of an intrigue initiated against him in the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in order to convince him to cooperate in the interests of National Socialism .
Fallada gets a command as a major for the Reich Labor Service in southern France , about which he wants to write a report. On his return he is supposed to write an anti-Jewish novel on behalf of the ministry, which Ms. Bukonje tries to convince him of. Hans Fallada, who at that time only wrote rubbish that nobody wanted to read, couldn't get hold of this material. In addition, a long stay in a sanatorium, to which he is admitted because of his alcohol and pill addiction, prevents productive work. After he was released from the home, he found part of the relatives of his wife and his mother in his house in Carwitz. They fled to this small town from the consequences of the advanced war in the larger towns in Germany. When he sees the full table, he immediately disappears into the local restaurant.
Here he met the Berlin industrialist widow Ursula Losch, who also, with her little daughter, had sought refuge in the small town. He stays with her the whole night and when he comes home drunk around noon, his wife tells him that she is going to get a divorce. When he is drunk and wants to get some things from his house, including his rifle, he starts shooting at the house and also aims directly at his divorced wife. It is only thanks to his drunkenness that he does not meet her. Anna overpowers him and throws the rifle into the lake. Fallada has to go to jail for these shots and he applies for a writing permit, which allows him to write the novel about the Jew that he is supposed to write for the Propaganda Ministry. In fact, between the lines, he wrote the manuscript for his famous book The Drinker . After his release he moves back to the beautiful, young Ursula and the love for her gives him new strength, which however will not be permanent. She is a morphinist and pulls him even further into the abyss.
After the end of the war, the Red Army installed him as mayor in Feldberg . Fallada takes the task very seriously and tries to enforce law and order, but fails because of the unfamiliar demands and moves to Berlin with his new wife Ursula, where his addiction to drugs is getting stronger. But he receives support from the poet Johannes R. Becher , whose neighbor he is and he begins to write again. So he can finish his book The Drinker while his wife gets money for the drugs by selling antiques . He gets a setback when he read an open letter in a newspaper in which Else-Marie Bukonje asks about the real Fallada. A publisher convinces him, of course, to write the novel, Everyone dies, for himself , with an advance payment . But he is physically exhausted and collapses during a reading on the radio, is admitted to a hospital, where he dies in February 1947 at the age of 53.
Production and publication
Fallada - The last chapter was filmed by the artistic work group “Red Circle” on ORWO- Color and had its premiere as the opening film of the National Feature Film Festival of the GDR on May 11, 1988 in the Karl-Marx-Städter Kino Luxor-Palast. The opening in the cinemas of the Federal Republic was on September 21, 1989. On the television of the GDR the film was shown for the first time on September 21, 1990 in the 2nd program.
Roland Gräf and Helga Schütz were responsible for the scenario and the dramaturgy was in the hands of Christel Gräf .
criticism
Helmut Ullrich's criticism in the Neue Zeit is fixed:
“A harrowing homage for this great writer. And a film of high artistic quality. Dramaturgically polished. Excellent photos (by Roland Dressel). Emotionally moving. "
In New Germany , Horst Knietzsch said :
“With all due respect for this work, perhaps the most mature of the director, a critical residue remains, but ultimately it will be decided by the viewer: deeper sympathy for the special features of this human fate, for the depressing aspects of his time, may only be the one who knows about Fallada's lifetime achievement. "
Detlef Friedrich wrote in the Berliner Zeitung :
“The Fallada life in bad times and the futile hope for him after the war is breathtakingly offered by rousing actors. The film critic's buzzword, actor film - this is where it belongs. "
The lexicon of international film writes that the film is more convincing as a psychological study of a personality breakdown between depression and aggression than as a critical view of the time in a poetic, documentary form.
Awards
- 1988: 5th National Feature Film Festival of the GDR Karl-Marx-Stadt : Grand Prize for the film as a whole
- 1988: 5th National Feature Film Festival of the GDR Karl-Marx-Stadt: Prize for camera
- 1988: 5th National Feature Film Festival of the GDR Karl-Marx-Stadt: Award for the best male leading role to Jörg Gudzuhn
- 1988: State award: Particularly valuable
- 1989: International Film Festival Chicago / USA : "Silver Hugo" for best actor to Jörg Gudzuhn
- 1989: Critics' award “The Big Flap” of the Theory and Criticism section of the Association of Film and TV Makers in the GDR - Best Male Actor 1988 - Jörg Gudzuhn
literature
- F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 163 to 164 .
- Fallada - Last Chapter In: Ingrid Poss / Peter Warneke (Eds.): Spur der Films Christoph Links Verlag, 2006, ISBN 978-3-86153-401-3 , pp. 431 to 435.
Web links
- Fallada - Last chapter in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Fallada - Last chapter at filmportal.de
- Fallada - Final Chapter at the DEFA Foundation
Individual evidence
- ↑ Berliner Zeitung of May 12, 1988, p. 1
- ↑ Neue Zeit of May 12, 1988, p. 4
- ↑ Neues Deutschland, May 21, 1988, p. 4
- ↑ Berliner Zeitung of May 25, 1988, p. 7
- ↑ Fallada - Final Chapter. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed December 10, 2017 .
- ↑ Berliner Zeitung of December 22, 1988, p. 7