Palermo or Wolfsburg

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Movie
Original title Palermo or Wolfsburg
Country of production Germany , Switzerland
original language German
Publishing year 1980
length 180 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Werner Schroeter
script Werner Schroeter
Giuseppe Fava
production Thomas Mauch
Eric Franck
music Alban Berg
camera Thomas Mauch
cut Werner Schroeter
occupation

Palermo or Wolfsburg is a German feature film from 1980.

action

Nicola is 17 years old. He comes from Sicily and is the son of a poor family. For him, Germany should be the land of unlimited possibilities and above all the land that helps the family in Sicily to survive. When he arrived in Wolfsburg , he found work at Volkswagen . There he made friends with other Italians who taught him how to get by in German society. Life in the far north is good for young Nicola, who is able to gain a foothold despite language difficulties. He falls in love with the German girl Brigitte. It becomes problematic when Brigitte leaves Nicola, who is inexperienced in love. Nicola grew up in the Sicilian tradition and feels robbed of his honor. Nicola thinks she has discovered his rivals and stabs two of Brigitte's friends to death.

It comes to the process that Nicola silently endures. He doesn't understand German too well to understand what it's actually about. His defense attorney wants an acquittal. Only at the end of the film does Nicola admit his guilt and surrender to his fate.

Reviews

  • Lexicon of international film : Schroeter's idiosyncratic film consists of three stylistically completely different "acts": the realistic mixes with operatic elements and satirical distortions up to a surrealist farce. The court spectacle of the third part seems irritating and questionable.
  • Peter W. Jansen in tip , Berlin, 1980: It is a risky ride with which Schroeter drives "Palermo or Wolfsburg", the almost three-hour film, from a realistic-documentary beginning into the absurdity of the realistic. Realism has become absurd where "being realistic" no longer means the will to style, but the approval of coldness, brutality and alienation as real conditions. In Wolfsburg, finally, it is not Nicola who is on trial, but everything that is associated with the word Wolfsburg and must be identified: industrial efficiency and ruthless, inhumane competition. At the same time, our cinema imaginations are on trial. She must confess and prove herself before the aesthetic tribunal of this film.

Awards

Werner Schroeter won the Golden Bear at the Berlinale 1980 with this film .

Trivia

The still photographer for the film was Digne Meller-Marcovicz .

Web links