Wedding polka

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Movie
Original title Wedding polka
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2010
length 90 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Lars Jessen
script Ingo Haeb ,
Przemyslaw Nowakowski ,
Lars Jessen
production Claudia Steffen ,
Christoph Friedel
music Jakob Ilja ,
Die Toten Hosen
camera Marcus Kanter ,
Michael Tötter
cut Sebastian Schultz
occupation

Wedding Polka is a German-Polish fictional film by Lars Jessen , which opened in German cinemas on September 30, 2010. Christian Ulmen plays the main role in the comedy, the action of which is set in Poland. Wedding Polka became a kind of follow-up film to Maria, he doesn't like it! understood, in whom Ulmen already played a German with a similar character who is celebrating a wedding abroad, there in Italy. Both films try to use the clash of different cultures as an occasion for comedic entanglements, in connection with the many clichés that Germans have of Poland.

action

Frieder Schulz is the singer of a small band, but surprisingly he has the opportunity to go to the Polish provinces as managing director. The father of band member Jonas owns a factory there. Frieder accepts the job and settles in the new environment. Three years later he is about to marry the Pole Gosia. But on the evening before the wedding day, his old friends from Germany unexpectedly appear, who want to surprise Frieder. The wedding takes its course and gets out of hand when his friends realize they are not wanted. However, they cannot leave because someone has heaved their car onto a plinth and they demolish it during the rescue. Nor do the Poles yet know that the factory should be closed. Fear of persecution, the German visitors steal a car and get lost in the area. The next day the mood calmed down and the Germans left by bus.

criticism

Two contradicting reviews appeared in the world . Ulrike Mau turned down the film: “Director Lars Jessen […] does not approach the relationship between Germans and Poles and men in a particularly sensitive manner. Vodka-sausage clichés are used until even the last smile freezes. 'Hochzeitspolka' is a thoroughly destructive film that expects the viewer to take a radial U-turn in the last ten minutes ”. One day later, she received positive criticism from her colleague Josef Engels. He said that the director, who specializes in northern German provincial milieus, will remain true to his first international production: “This work, after all, the first all-German comedy on Polish soil, is determined by a dissecting view of the provinces, dry humor and that of German fun films rare willingness not to resolve conflicts smoothly. ”The prejudices on both sides are neither glossed over nor resolved. Rather, many German-Polish clichés are accommodated "in an amusing way". Susan Vahabzadeh from the Süddeutsche Zeitung commented in a similar way : “A story like this can easily turn into politically correct slapstick with a sauce of reconciliation, but Jessen avoided the danger very nicely.” Jessen showed “talent, completely” during the “wild ride on the cliché carousel” to lovingly stage the grotesque ”.

Jan Brachmann from the Berliner Zeitung emphasized the West German origins of Frieder's colleagues. What a comedy wants to be is a “nasty grotesque”, “because it pulls a type into the spotlight that many have grown tired of being angry about: the ugly Wessi - in many forms. That is the famous trick of this film: How can you show the ugly Wessi in his stupidity, his mental obesity, his arrogance and ignorance without again provoking inner German outrage or bored dismissal? "By replacing Ossis with Poles, who now suffered what East Germans had experienced with Wessis in the last twenty years.

Other critics lacked humor. Tagesspiegel reviewer Kerstin Decker noted an "irritating absence of humor". “It's not easy to say why this non-comedy fails. Because comedies can be coarse, hearty, even clichéd, you just have to catch up with all the strange things. Preferably with absurdity. And Jessen doesn't have that. ”In the taz , Barbara Schweizerhof found the film thoroughly researched and named the“ construction flaw in this comedy: In all its succinct little scenes and precise observations, it grows far beyond the level of Polish joke, but unfortunately it is correspondingly less irritating laugh. The wooden play of the German actors, with the exception of Christian Ulmen, does the rest ”.

The script was criticized several times, the “bumpy story”, the “bumpy story”, in which only the beginning and the end were successful. The conflicts are "applied much too thickly", the scenes about village life offer captivating comedy, but the punch lines about Frieder's parents come from "too yesterday". Christian Ulmen did well. He is able to play “all the nuances of shyness, overwhelming and embarrassment” and suits the role, plays one of his best roles, but is “at a loss” in this film.

background

The polka dance comes from the Czech musical tradition, not the Polish one. For the end credits of the film, the music group Die Toten Hosen recorded the song Eisgekühlter Bommerlunder in Polish ( Zamrożona Wyborowa ).

literature

conversation

Review mirror

positive

Mixed

  • epd Film , No. 10/2010, p. 50, by Birgit Roschy: Hochzeitspolka
  • Die tageszeitung , September 30, 2010, by Barbara Schweizerhof: Hochzeitspolka

Rather negative

negative

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for wedding polka . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , August 2010 (PDF; test number: 123 893 K).
  2. ↑ a b c Ralf Blau: Hochzeitspolka . In: Cinema No. 10/2010, p. 55
  3. ↑ a b c d e Birgit Roschy: Hochzeitspolka . In: epd Film , No. 10/2010, p. 50
  4. ^ A b c Josef Engels: Christian Ulmen gets married in the province of Poland . In: Die Welt , September 29, 2010
  5. ↑ a b c d Kerstin Decker: The joke of life . In: Der Tagesspiegel , September 29, 2010
  6. ↑ What clichés do Germans have about Poland . progres- Sprachen.de
  7. ↑ Ulrike Mau: Wedding Polka . In: Die Welt , September 28, 2010
  8. ↑ Susan Vahabzadeh: In the cliché carousel . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 30, 2010
  9. ↑ Jan Brachmann: Invasion of the Nutella babies . In: Berliner Zeitung , September 30, 2010
  10. ↑ Barbara Schweizerhof: Wedding Polka . In: taz , September 30, 2010