Otto - The disaster film

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Movie
Original title Otto - The disaster film
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2000
length 92 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
JMK 6
Rod
Director Edzard Onneken
script Michel Bergmann ,
Bernd Eilert ,
Otto Waalkes
production Horst Wendlandt
music Darius Zahir
camera Hagen Bogdanski
cut Annette Dorn
occupation

Otto - Der Katastrofenfilm is a German comedy from 2000 and the fifth feature film by and with Otto Waalkes in the leading role.

action

The film is divided into a framework and an inner story. During the former, the protagonist Otto sits on a park bench in New York's Central Park and tells curious tourists his life story (allusion to Forrest Gump ). This is summarized below.

Beginning

Otto is born the son of a vagabond in a barn (this scene is a parody of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth .) His parents put him in a wicker basket (parody of Moses ), and he drifts across the East Frisian canals and drainage ditches. An old fisherman finally finds him and takes him at home, in a rustic hut by the Pilsum lighthouse .

In a hut on Pilsum lighthouse comes Otto with an old fishing under

Life in East Frisia

The old man raises Otto, using sometimes very questionable educational methods. He also tells his "grandson" that he was a famous seaman and that he used to pilot the large liner Queen Henry .

The adult Otto leads a quiet life. He works as a milk delivery and mudflat guide in Greetsiel and composes pieces of music that are hostile to tourists . One day the “grandfather” dies and confesses on his deathbed that he was never a real captain. After the funeral, Otto takes the train to “Hamburch” .

Crossing

There he took part in a sailor's test in order to get on board the Queen Henry , which was lying on the quays in the port of Hamburg for the journey to New York City . However, he is classified as unsuitable and has to find another solution: He disguises himself as a woman and successfully pretends to be a new member of the pop band Old Speis Görls .

At the same time, the ship, which belongs to the Japanese owner Manimaka San (an allusion to the English "money maker"), is 300 percent overinsured with a German insurance company on the pretext of valuable cargo. The Japanese plan to sink the ship with the help of a bomb to collect the insurance sum. To do this, they send an assassin on board. However, the head of insurance is suspicious and instructs the agent Sonja to go on board to prevent a possible attack.

Interpol investigators are looking for the assassin and believe Otto to be this man. Two undercover agents start the journey.

The Statue of Liberty - the end point of Queen Henry's journey

On the run from them, Otto pretends to be a cook and a pastor, among other things. He saves the penguin Max from death in the soup pot and gets closer to the attractive Sonja during the entire trip.

Finally, the stowaway Otto is caught and tied up in the hold next to a coffin, for which a burial at sea is planned. At night the assassin sneaks down and arm the bomb hidden in the coffin. However, Otto manages to get his release and he catapults the bomb overboard, where it lands right next to the assassin, who is fleeing on a rubber dinghy, and explodes.

The entire crew, apparently informed by Manimaka San, has, however, left in a lifeboat in anticipation of the sinking of the Queen Henry , so that the ship is driverless. Otto therefore takes over the empty command bridge and reaches the destination of the trip, New York, by sheer coincidence. He wants to make his “grandfather's dream” come true and steer the ship into New York Harbor. Immediately before arrival, however, he notices that they are traveling too fast, and the steering wheel can no longer be moved. A little later, Queen Henry pushes herself to Liberty Island , where mass panic has already broken out, and rams the Statue of Liberty . This then collapses.

In the credits, Otto and Sonja, who has meanwhile informed him about their jobs and resigned from her employer, go into a future together.

criticism

“The life story, which begins with a parody of the birth of Jesus, is largely laid out as a collection of quotes from films and film genres, which are exhausted in meager jokes, which are further reduced by a bombastic decor and an opulent camera. Without a precise sense of time for the effectiveness of the few original gags, the film silts up in complete irrelevance and humor. "

- Lexicon of international film

Locations

The train that Otto takes does not run in East Frisia, for example, but rather the Heidekrautbahn near Berlin. The scene in which the tourists at Greetsiel station are chased away by the "Dummer Sack" song was also filmed there. In fact, Greetsiel hasn't had a train station since 1963; In addition, the Emden – Pewsum – Greetsiel circular railway that once operated there was not a standard gauge , but a meter gauge .

The scenes on the Reeperbahn in Hamburg were shot in the Babelsberg film studio .

Trivia

As in the other Otto films, there are also numerous cultural and pop cultural allusions in this film:

  • The beginning contains several references to the Bible , Otto's birth in a barn is a parody of the birth of Jesus Christ and the scene in which his parents put him in a wicker basket is a parody of Moses .
  • The ship's name Queen Henry is a parody of the RMS Queen Mary , and the cruise to New York, which ends in disaster, is a reference to the Titanic and the 1997 film adaptation that was popular at the time .
  • The pop group Old Speis Görls parodies the Spice Girls and the perfume Old Spice .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Age rating for Otto - The disaster film . Youth Media Commission .
  2. ^ Otto - The disaster film. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed July 22, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used