Everything according to plan in the west
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Everything according to plan in the west |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1990 |
| length | 107 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 0 |
| Rod | |
| Director |
Hans Peter Clahsen , Michael F. Huse |
| script | Werner Morgenrath |
| production | Kurt Lanthaler |
| music | Pit Witt |
| camera | Piotr Lenar |
| cut | Barbara Kirchner |
| occupation | |
| |
Everything according to plan in the west (subtitle: ... the last film from the former Federal Republic: when we shouldn't share yet ) is a German documentary by Hans Peter Clahsen and Michael F. Huse from 1990. The cinema project about poverty in West Germany in the year of the collapse of the German Democratic Republic , and also in the time when the costs of German unity could not yet be an argument in favor of social cuts in West German society.
action
In the West everything according to plan takes a look behind the façades of the West German affluent society in the year of reunification: dormitories for asylum seekers, large numbers of children with social welfare status, homeless settlements, old-age poverty, urban poverty, human dignity. Although this situation does the government in Bonn difficult, the concept of poverty to define: "There is no generally accepted definition of poverty. And if there is no generally applicable term, then there is no way of giving absolute numbers. "
The fate of the forgotten in the German consumer circus stands against the full-bodied statements by Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl , Federal Minister for Labor and Social Affairs , Norbert Blüm and others. The mother of five children does not find understanding in the social welfare office. When the doorbell rings at her home, it's not friends, but the bailiff. The old man from Regensburg surprises with his clever wisdom, but his daily struggle for alms becomes clear during his midday visits to the courtly emergency kitchen in Thurn und Taxis .
Asylum seekers and Germans are waiting for improvements in emergency shelters in Saarland; people in old age are waiting for that in Cologne. If you live in a nice apartment, wait to be evicted. In East Friesland, people “peel crabs”, working from home for less than two euros an hour.
background
In the 1980s in particular, the Federal Republic increasingly looked at the social and economic conditions in poorer countries. From this point of view, the social market economy made in West Germany was self-confidently postulated and exemplary for other social models.
The directors Hans Peter Clahsen and Michael F. Huse themselves took part in their television documentary Moment Poland ( NDR ) in 1988 . So what could be more natural than to direct this keen eye for socio-political issues abroad just as consistently to one's own West German reality and to make a movie about the “swindle of the welfare state”?
On November 9, 1989, the Paritätische Wohlfahrtsverband presented its first German poverty report to the public at the federal press conference in Bonn . On the night drive back to West Berlin, the first hitchhiker from the GDR to West Berlin got into the car in Magdeburg to see the authors. The research team realized that it was high time to realize a film project that took stock of the social justice achieved in the 40th year of the Federal Republic.
Reviews
After its release in 1990, the film sparked heated controversy at the Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film and when it was used in cinemas, especially in the new federal states . The directors Hans Peter Clahsen and Michael F. Huse were accused of portraying West German reality in an exaggeratedly negative way.
“The film is staged with unyielding severity and its sequence obeys the structure of the tightly composed commentary. In short, a veritable war machine that its makers direct against the former West Germany, where they uncover a completely new and unsettling aspect by giving voice to those who are struggling to survive in poverty in this rich country. [...] Shocking images that the film does not use to feed cheap effects. In the West, everything according to plan belongs to the best political cinema, a genre that is disappearing and that is here finding its way back to its full potential: being uncomfortable, even annoying. "
Awards
- Filmbewertungsstelle Wiesbaden: "Rating: Particularly valuable"
- 1991: Grand Jury Prize, Belfort Film Festival
- 1992: 1st prize from the Commission of the European Communities
literature
- Gabriele Gillen , Michael Möller: You missed the connection . In: Poverty in Germany . tape 42 . Dietz, Bonn 1992, ISBN 3-8012-3042-2 .