Kai out of the box (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Kai out of the box |
| Country of production | GDR |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1988 |
| length | 93 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK free with no age restriction |
| Rod | |
| Director | Günter Meyer |
| script | Günter Meyer |
| production | Oscar Ludmann |
| music | Johannes Bad |
| camera | Wolfgang Braumann |
| cut | Helga Wardeck |
| occupation | |
| |
Kai aus der Kiste is a German children's film by director Günter Meyer based on the novel by Wolf Durian . The television film was shot in 1988 in the GDR . It is set in Berlin in 1923.
action
Kai lives in Berlin with his mother and two siblings. Social and societal life is characterized by poverty and rapid inflation . From his friend, a bellboy at the Hotel Imperator, he learns that a current hotel guest, the American Mac Allen, is looking for a “king of advertising” to market his chewing gum products in Germany (originally cigarette production). Thereupon Kai has himself hidden in a box and transported to the American's hotel room to apply for the post. Mac Allen would first like to see for himself whether Kai is even capable of attracting attention. Kai bets his twins that he'll manage to make his gang's trademark, "the black hand", so popular overnight that Mac Allen is approached by at least five people the next day. Immediately afterwards, he rounds up the boys from the neighborhood at the gang's secret meeting point in the sewer system. These help him print the whole city with black hands, whereupon he wins the bet and a hundred dollars the next day, which he shares with his helpers. He can also compete against the advertising specialist Alexander Kubalski in a competition, whereby each of the two must advertise a chewing gum brand within three days and collect up to a hundred points. Kai is supposed to promote the “Bäng” brand and Kubalski the “Bong” brand. Mac Allen verbally promises the winner the job of “advertising king for Germany” and great wealth. Together with his friends, Kai manages to flood Berlin so intensely with advertising shortly before the deadline - with numerous incursions and sabotage actions against his opponent - that any promotional campaigns for the two chewing gum brands are even banned by the police. However, after Kai emerges as the winner of the competition, he finds that Mac Allen has lied to him and is breaking his bargain because his products have already received sufficient attention through the competition.
background
The story is based on the children's book of the same name by Wolf Durian from 1926. Kai embodies a cheeky and lively rascal who manages social advancement in the midst of the economic crisis at the time. The GDR filming changed Durian's story for party ideological reasons, among other things, so that Kai was not granted this social advancement. Therefore, especially at the end of the film, there are considerable differences between book and film:
Where in Durian's book a smart boy with the help of an American “cigarette king” manages the rise “from street boy to millionaire”, that is, an “American dream story” with German characteristics in the style of Horatio Alger , the seemingly jovial “chewing gum” emerges -König "in the film is ultimately as a boor and deceiver with no intention of ever awarding the prize in the form of a job as the" advertising king of Germany ". Kai becomes a victim without the possibility of defending himself.
Reviews
"Lively children's musical created for GDR television, which - at times very funny, then again sensitive - paints an authentic picture of the times."
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kai out of the box. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .