Icarus (1975)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Icarus |
| Country of production | GDR |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1975 |
| length | 91 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 6 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Heiner Carow |
| script | Heiner Carow Klaus Schlesinger |
| production | DEFA , "Babelsberg" group |
| music | Peter Gotthardt |
| camera | Jürgen Brauer |
| cut | Evelyn Carow |
| occupation | |
| |
Ikarus is a German children's and contemporary film by DEFA by Heiner Carow from 1975 . The film scenario was created by Klaus Schlesinger, but has been changed a lot. It is based on his story "Nine".
action
Mathias is eight years old and lives with his mother in Berlin . His parents are divorced, but now and then Mathias sees his father, who also lives in Berlin but is often on the road as a journalist. One day Mathias visits his father unannounced, who is currently visiting a "colleague". Mathias sees a picture in his father's apartment that shows Icarus in the sun. His father tells him the legend of Icarus and Mathias says that he would like to fly one day. His father promises to take him on a sightseeing flight over Berlin on his 9th birthday.
Some time later the time has come: Mathias will be nine years old. His mother's new friend, whom Mathias is allowed to call "Uncle Jochen", gave him toy soldiers. Mathias, however, waits impatiently for his father. At school he skips the after-school care center because he thinks he will go to the airport with his father. He calls him after school, but his father is not there. Mathias goes to his job, where it is said that the father is on a construction site for an article. The construction site shows that the father has just left. Mathias' search continues, who is firmly convinced that his father will keep his promise. While he is looking, he also keeps reminding himself of ugly scenes, the argument between his parents and his problems when he came to a new class after his parents divorced and pretended to have a whole family life in front of his new classmates.
Mathias meets his best friend Kater, with whom he watches a man stealing alcohol in a department store. Mathias wants to convict the man, but in the end Kater no longer wants to pursue the man, whose act would no longer be detectable after quitting consumption. The tomcat cannot come to the airfield where Mathias suspects his father to be. However, he is not here either. Since Mathias assumes that his father will get on a plane with him, he runs onto the flight path as passengers board an Interflug plane . He is picked up by the police and is only allowed to go with a police officer after he has given his name. With a trick, Mathias manages to escape the policeman. After ringing the doorbell of his father's apartment in vain, Mathias goes home frustrated. Not only his mother and grandma await him here, but also his father. He gives Mathias his birthday present: an electric train. Mathias is disappointed. When his mother and father start to talk about their work at the coffee table, Mathias leaves under a pretext. He takes the Icarus picture his father gave him and angrily throws it from the roof. Back on the street, he meets Uncle Jochen. He has a large model airplane with him that he wants to test out. Mathias doesn't think it's flying, but Jochen dares to steer it through the air. The plane crashes in a particularly risky maneuver. Mathias rushes over and is beside himself. He screams and cries, knowing that it couldn't fly, and Jochen calms him down. If it didn't work today, they will try again tomorrow. Jochen and Mathias go home together.
production
Ikarus was filmed in Berlin from 1974 under the working title Die Neun . Individual scenes were created at Schönefeld Airport , in Treptower Park and on Schönhauser Allee , among others . Ewald Forchner created the costumes, while Dieter Adam designed the film .
The film had its film premiere on September 4, 1975 in Europa 70 in Karl-Marx-Stadt and was released in GDR cinemas on September 19, 1975. It was only shown briefly in the cinemas because the subject of a child of divorce was too "uncomfortable" and was "apostrophized by leading politicians in the GDR as anti-socialism". On April 12, 1977 the film was shown on GDR 1 on GDR television and was also shown in BRD cinemas on March 16, 1979.
The music for the film comes from Peter Gotthardt and was partly sung by the Dresden Kreuzchor . The title song Meine Tante Hedwig was sung by the Omnibus pioneer choir . The song I want , which can be heard several times in the film, comes from Bettina Wegner .
criticism
Contemporary critics saw Icarus as a film for adults and stated that “[we] look at ourselves through the eyes of a nine-year-old [...]”. The Wochenpost praised the film as an "urgent appeal to socialist humanity"; the film "mobilizes" the goodness in people. Other critics saw the moral strength of the film in the fact that it "causes the viewer to recognize his responsibility for the young generation through the story of Mathias." The film polemizes against indifference and heartlessness. Renate Holland-Moritz summarized her criticism in 1975:
“Thanks to Heiner Carow for a beautiful, sorely necessary, deeply human film. And he is loudly praised for the extraordinary acting performance that the little leading actor Peter Welz achieved under his leadership. "
For the German film service , Ikarus was a "dense and, despite all loving looseness, very serious film about the vulnerability of children and the lack of sensitivity and attention in adults."
literature
- F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films. The complete documentation of all DEFA feature films from 1946 to 1993. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 265–266.
- Icarus . 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. 205-207.
Web links
- Icarus in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Ikarus at filmportal.de
- Ikarus at the DEFA Foundation
Individual evidence
- ^ Klaus Schlesinger: Ikarus - film scenario . Henschelverlag Art and Society, Berlin 1975.
- ^ Klaus Schlesinger: Berlin dream - five stories . 2nd edition 1988. VEB Hinstorff Verlag, Rostock 1977, ISBN 3-356-00217-1 , p. 104-114 .
- ↑ Cf. Ikarus on progress-film.de ( Memento of the original from November 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films. The complete documentation of all DEFA feature films from 1946 to 1993. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , p. 265.
- ↑ a b Icarus in the Lexicon of International Films
- ↑ Berliner Zeitung of December 13, 1976
- ↑ Renate Seydel: Was full of love and was full of trust… . In: Filmspiegel , No. 23, 1975, p. 9.
- ↑ [[> Rosemarie Rehahn]] in Wochenpost , No. 39, 1975.
- ^ Hermann Herlinghaus: It's about the social responsibility of the artist. About some DEFA films from 1975/76 . In: Horst Knietzsch (Ed.): Prisma Kino- und Fernsehalmanach . No. 8. Henschelverlag Art and Society, Berlin 1977, p. 104.
- ^ Renate Holland-Moritz: cinema owl . In: Eulenspiegel , No. 43, 1975. Quoted from: Renate Holland-Moritz: The owl in the cinema. Movie reviews . Eulenspiegel, Berlin 1981, p. 145.
