O Happy Day (1970)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | O Happy Day |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1970 |
| length | 90 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Zbyněk Brynych |
| script | Alexander Fuhrmann |
| production | Walter Tjaden |
| music | Peter Thomas |
| camera | Josef Vaniš |
| cut | Sophie Mikorey |
| occupation | |
| |
O Happy Day is a German feature film from 1970 by Zbyněk Brynych with Anne-Marie Kuster in the role of a young girl, whose maturing sexuality turns her into a grown woman. The teenager is framed by established stars of German film such as Nadja Tiller , Karl-Michael Vogler , Hanne Wieder and Siegfried Rauch .
action
Anna is a fun-loving, bright Munich woman, 17 years old and inquisitive about everything that has to do with her maturing sexuality. In the Latin class of the nun in the convent school, her only thought is the question, which is much more important to her, “whether nuns are actually real women”. After class, Anna lets the family chauffeur drive her home. The good mood and zest for life are written on her face, because during the drive, during which she obviously flirts with the chauffeur looking in the rear-view mirror, the famous gospel song Oh Happy Day can be heard .
Anna comes from a good family, her father is a very busy building contractor, her mother is just as luxurious as she is distant. She gives the impression that her own appearance and yoga exercises are more important than her own daughter. Everything is actually going well, and yet the teenager is confused: not quite a girl anymore and not quite a woman. Anna's boyfriend Robert, who is a few years older and a beautiful guy like him in the book, arouses sexual desire in her, but this is not fulfilled. He seems strangely inhibited and reserved, takes her to Bayern Munich games , but feels overwhelmed when she wants to talk to him about her needs. Everything is buzzing in Anna's head and many things confuse her. In a dream sequence, the chauffeur even comes very close to her: lustful, demanding, touching. Everything that Robert does not (yet) dare to do - desiring and threatening at the same time.
The parents are not of much help either. First and foremost, the daughter should function and not cause any problems. Instead of having conversations, people prefer to throw money around. Facade is everything. When the potential business partner Siemsen is invited, daughter Anna has to work again and help to maintain the illusion of a healthy, intact family. At best, her girls' room is good for rebellion, with its exhibits of psychedelic Pop Art , which looks like a contrast program, an alternative to the well-behaved bourgeoisie parental world. After a nightly odyssey in which she ends up in a hippie commune that has spread to one of her father's construction sites, she promptly ends up at a police station. The subsequent discussion with the parents does not lead to anything meaningful, just like the first night of sex with friend Robert in the bed of a hotel room. In the end Anna may have matured and grown up, but she still doesn't know where her life will lead.
Production notes
O Happy Day , occasionally spelling, adapted to the famous song, also Oh Happy Day , was Brynych's first movie made in the West after his escape from Czechoslovakia. He worked with directing gimmicks that were fashionable at the time (unleashed camera work, psychedelic lighting effects and the like). The film was made in Munich in spring 1970.
After the majority of the FSK working committee approved the film, the outvoted minority appealed to the main committee. But even the majority of them were of the opinion that the film addressed sensitive topics, but overall the "problem of adolescents feeling misunderstood" was real. The suggestion of intimate scenes between the sixteen-year-old and her boyfriend are also unproblematic in view of the “well-known current state of awareness among young people”. The world premiere took place on July 31, 1970.
The film was also released on DVD and received the speculative as well as sensational (and above all largely inapplicable) new title Heisse Teens aus gute Home .
criticism
"Trendy-chic 'youth problem film', boring to run away from."
Web links
- O Happy Day in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- O Happy Day at filmportal.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jürgen Kniep: “No youth release!” Film censorship in West Germany 1949 - 1990 , Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2010, p. 226 f.
- ^ O Happy Day in the Lexicon of International Films