My old friend Fritz

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title My old friend Fritz
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2007
length 95 minutes
Rod
Director Dieter Wedel
script Dieter Wedel
production Martin Hoffmann
Jürgen Kriwitz
music Ralf Wengenmayr
camera Edward Kłosiński
cut Kerstin helper
Patricia Rommel
occupation

My old friend Fritz is a German TV film by Dieter Wedel from 2007.

action

The successful, self-confident surgeon Professor Harry Seidel is convinced that good medicine and economic considerations are mutually exclusive. His technical competence is undisputed, but many - above all the HR manager Manfred Zach - accuse him of coldness and selfishness . Lydia, Harry's wife, is being courted by fellow photographer Jim. After twenty years of marriage, Lydia says, she just doesn't feel like Harry anymore and doesn't refuse Jim. A near fatal car accident messes up Harry's life and worldview. He does not want to resign after the accident and unwillingly pulls his friend Fritz, who died a good twenty years ago, into this world, where only he can see him. However, Harry discussed with Fritz in the presence of everyone. Instead of hiding his friend, he argues loudly with him in front of colleagues and family. After all, he is considered to be insane.

Zach wants to drop him off, but Seidel wins the exchange between the chief physician and HR manager in front of the assembled doctors. Then Zach lost. Harry's visions of Fritz finally reveal themselves as the personification of an unresolved conflict of conscience: Harry, out of cowardice, had not informed Fritz about his illness and had also stayed cowardly away from the hour of his friend's death. The conflict and its disturbing effects on Harry's environment force him to find new priorities. While his wife Lydia almost gave in to Jim's advances, Harry kissed the young nurse Cora. But Fritz opens Harry's eyes again to the beauty of his wife Lydia and the value of his partnership and family, and Harry returns to her as she does to him. The marriage has overcome its stagnation phase. Professor Seidel's visions have the effect of giving patients the reputation of a “miracle doctor”. Patients flock to the clinic, profitability increases, the professor and his tick become a cash cow.

The final scene breaks through the “fourth wall” of the play room presented, the sister addresses the audience and tells how Professor Seidel's visions of Fritz came to an end. Fritz disappeared at the same moment that the professor had brought a new citizen into the world in an emergency birth in a taxi.

In the end, the doctor is even praised by the Prime Minister (played by Christian Wulff ).

Reviews

  • "Wedel is too thick in already grotesque situations. The comparatively subtly drawn professor is faced with satirically distorted, panoptic-ripe opponents. The sweet finale (with the real Christian Wulff in the role of Lower Saxony's Prime Minister) can perhaps be let go. Downright annoying are the sometimes wooden, almost declaimed dialogues, even if that may fit with Wedel's enlightening impetus. Despite these weaknesses, "My old friend Fritz" remains a sympathetic film. It has very good actors. It looks for an unconventional, entertaining approach on a topic that is often ignored. And it conveys a message that can be discussed. He groans a little under her burden. But he carries her for an hour and a half and she carries him. " ( Berliner Morgenpost )
  • "In the end the ghost Fritz disappeared - we learned that there are no ghosts at all and that Fritz was only the cipher of a suppressed feeling of guilt. What a shame. As if that weren't enough, the incarnate Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, Christian Wulff (CDU ), shakes hands and gives a speech at the inauguration of the enlarged hospital: The world is all right again. And that is really spooky. " ( taz )
  • “ Turbulent, contemplative television comedy that ironically targets medical hubris and everyday hospital life and appeals to humanity, which is often in danger of being forgotten in modern everyday life. Solidly staged, played convincingly in the main role and also touching, the film still leaves a rather bland aftertaste because it lacks the social bite. "( Lexicon of International Films )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ My old friend Fritz - Critique of the Morgenpost ( Memento from September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ My old friend Fritz - review of the taz
  3. ^ Journal film-dienst and Catholic Film Commission for Germany (eds.), Horst Peter Koll and Hans Messias (ed.): Lexikon des Internationale Films - Filmjahr 2007 . Schüren Verlag, Marburg 2008. ISBN 978-3-89472-624-9