NVA (film)

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Movie
Original title NVA
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2005
length 94 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Leander Haussmann
script Thomas Brussig
Leander Haussmann
production Claus buoy
music Paul Lemp
Marcel Blatti
camera Frank Griebe
cut Hansjörg Weißbrich
occupation

NVA is a comedy film by the director Leander Haußmann from 2005. Haußmann also wrote the script together with Thomas Brussig . The film caricatures life in the National People's Army (abbreviated: NVA) in the final phase of the GDR .

action

The film begins with the arrival of the new conscripts at the Fidel Castro barracks . Among them are the dreamy and sensitive Henrik and the recalcitrant and daring Krüger. Because of his long hair and his provocative manner, Kruger immediately attracts the officers' negative attention. When the recruits show each other photos of their friends, only Krüger has none to show; The reason he gives is that he broke up with his girlfriend just because of military service.

Both recruits often clash with the officers and the older conscripts, the so-called EKs ( discharge candidates ). Various rites and harassment of the EKs are shown, v. a. how they treat the young soldiers (“smooth ones”) in a degrading way and even torture them. After the previous girlfriend of the sensitive Henrik separated from him by letter because of the long service, he is looking for a new girlfriend, which seems hardly possible in the life of a conscript in the GDR. During an exercise, however, he accidentally met a young girl who later turned out to be the daughter of the humorless site commander Colonel Kalt. A love relationship develops between the two despite all the obstacles caused by military service. Hendrik's comrade Krüger is temporarily transferred to the notorious penal company in Schwedt / Oder due to illness simulation and unauthorized removal from Colonel Kalt's troops . When he returns one day, his character appears turned inside out. Nothing is left of his rebellious manner and humor. Krüger is now the “perfect soldier”, but he is psychologically badly battered and broken as a person. When a girl remembers Krüger of his rebellious times with a song, Krüger bursts into tears in front of him and thinks back to his earlier days and thus also to his friends.

The film ends with the collapse of the GDR and thus with the dissolution of the NVA.

background

  • The film had the working title NVA - Maneuver Snowflake .
  • The shooting took place from July 14, 2004 to September 3, 2004.
  • The film was shot in the former Heide barracks in Bad Düben .
  • The cinema release in Germany was on September 29, 2005. In German cinemas around 800,000 visitors were counted.
  • Director Leander Haußmann and his father Ezard Haußmann play doctors in the film.
  • There are allusions to the film Full Metal Jacket , which are expressed by Krüger as a defiant recruit at the welcome roll call, Heidler's recitation of Warrior's Creed and Krüger's request for help with loading through the galley .
  • The film ends with the fade-in "In Memoriam: 1949-1989". This period relates to the establishment of the GDR up to the fall of the Berlin Wall . The GDR officially existed until 1990, the NVA was founded in 1956.

Reviews

  • Matthias Dell wrote in the Friday : The armist's life is cheerful: The superiors are strict and gay, the older comrades sadistic and mean, but in the end everything was not as bad because somehow you had really nice buddies. The old song. [..] NVA joins the phalanx of its predecessors, who, in retrospect, all make themselves comfortable on the soft pillow of the Transfiguration, that a time when one had such nice buddies couldn't have been so bad. Significantly, the drama of the army in the GDR is omitted from the NVA: the rebellious person's upbringing, the "rounding up", takes place outside, from where he returns as a blunt machine.
  • Christiane Peitz wrote in Der Tagesspiegel : While training for the correct camouflage with fir branches falls off one or two puns: The enemy is spotted because he only has the mixed forest in mind because of the sheer urge to expand. But neither the retro music from Bowie to clay, stones, shards nor Detlev Buck, as straw-blond and straw-stupid colonel, ensure lasting comedic esprit. Military clothes only work if they are really bad. Haußmann, however, vacillates between farce, idiocy and gentle legend in Cinemascope.
  • Günter Schabowski wrote in Der Spiegel : After the Stasi, the army was the most dangerous part of the power that the SED had. What the film shows in barracks life is a series of loosely linked scenes that illustrate the drill and the more or less rude practice of the superiors in dealing with the subordinates. This has often been seen in films, and the jokes are definitely reminiscent of West German barracks comedies. But isn't it also essential that the SED leadership not only considered using the army at least as a threat against the demonstrating people? As is well known, such a parade had been staged in Leipzig on the orders of Honecker , with which the Monday demonstrators were to be intimidated.
  • Jochen Schmidt wrote in the daily newspaper : It has become a comedy. Why not? [..] Still, how sad would it be for (West) German film history if there were only military clothes like " 08/15 " with their disgusting rascal mentality during World War II - and not Bernhard Wicki's " Die Brücke "? [..] However, given the abundance of episodes, it quickly appears as if the army service was exciting and varied, like a holiday camp, but it was exactly the opposite.

“In my eyes, however, the film is an absolute trivialization of the true conditions that prevailed in many NVA barracks. At Haussmann's, a Sprutz met the pretty daughter of his company commander, of all people, who also lives in his own home and garden not far from the barracks. This is kitsch, far removed from reality. The officers almost always lived in gray unit blocks (“boiler lockers”). For an innocent person who has no idea about the NVA, the film may be entertaining, but it is likely to alienate or disappoint the majority of former NVA basic military service. "

- Peter Tannhoff - author of the autobiography "Sprutz - in the clutches of the NVA"

“The (not entirely successful) film showed one thing above all else: The heyday of rubbish about the GDR finally seems to be over. The life of the others , the great film opus about the GDR state security, has better staged the dimension of the surveillance and military state. "

- Stefan Wolter - author of the autobiography "The Prince and the Proradies. On the struggle against collective repression", Halle 2009, p. 80.

music

The pieces of music contained are rather untypical for the film: For example, at the beginning of the film Bad Moon Rising by Creedence Clearwater Revival can be heard. For former GDR citizens, however, this song is closely linked to military service (text at the time: “Farewell to sex and horny women, farewell to schnapps and LSD, farewell to everything we love, shit we have to go to the army”). The Berlin band Element of Crime is contributing two tracks: a new recording of the English folk song My bonnie is over the ocean and a cover version of Bob Dylan's It's all over now, baby blue . The play Lucky Man by Emerson, Lake & Palmer is recorded for the love scene in the watchtower . There is also - as a reference to the “glorification of homelessness among class enemies ” - a discussion about the song Ein Bett im Kornfeld by Jürgen Drews . There are also Gänselieschen from the first LP by the Klaus Renft Combo , Light and Day by The Polyphonic Spree and Oh very young by Cat Stevens .

Awards

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.freitag.de/autoren/der-freitag/ Grenzverletzung
  2. ↑ http://www.tagesspiegel.de/kultur/sonnenallee-schattenarmee/646536.html
  3. ↑ Günter Schabowski: COMEDY: Unfidel in Castro barracks . In: Der Spiegel . No. 39 , 2005 ( online ).
  4. ↑ http://www.taz.de/1/archiv/archiv/?dig=2005/09/29/a0185

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