What happened if …?

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Movie
Original title What happened if …?
Country of production GDR
original language German
Publishing year 1960
length 90 minutes
Rod
Director Gerhard Klingenberg
script Gerhard Klingenberg,
Hedda Zinner
production DEFA studio for feature films
music Peter Fischer
camera Erich Gusko
cut Ruth Schreiber
occupation

What happened if …? is a GDR cinema film from 1960 . The DEFA production is about what happened in the 1950s in a village on the GDR side of the nearby inner-German border . The film was based on the comedy "What if -?" By Hedda Zinner .

action

In the (fictitious) small central German village of Willshagen, the collectivization of agriculture was promoted at the end of the 1950s . This also leads to conflicts between the large farmers and those responsible for the agricultural production cooperative (LPG) that is to be established .

Unknown men suddenly appear in a West car who are intensely interested in the village and undertake extensive measurements and renovations. So the rumor arises that the village will be exchanged for an area "from the west". The fronts within the village community continue to harden, as everyone wants to prepare for the near future in the best possible way. When a DEFA film team appears, it becomes clear that the strangers have only made the effort to prepare the village as a film location.

background

The possible border adjustment discussed in the film often took place after 1945 between East and West. For example, in the context of the Barber-Lyashchenko Agreement .

Production and publication

The premiere of the film took place on September 2, 1960 in the Volkshaus cinema in Berlin-Lichtenberg .

criticism

In September 1960 , in the Berliner Zeitung subordinate to the Central Committee of the SED , the commentator HUE remarked about the film that had recently been shown in theaters:

“But what would have to be there for this doctrine to work convincingly: an accurate one. the typical emerging image of the new reality in our villages - that is completely missing. You don't discover it because the script anxiously clings to the stage and does not get away from the - theater-related and theater-appropriate - narrowness and limitation of the locations. But the real flaw lies deeper. One would have had to redesign from the ground up, because the film does not require playing with reality, but reality itself, full reality. However, this film does not adhere to reality, but to the template. "

In the criticism of the Neue Zeit , the central organ of the GDR CDU , HU complained that someone who saw Hedda Zinner's play 'What would be if.?' know that the DEFA film of the same name could not be liked, and further stated:

“Jokes that are taken out of the box of the oldest film clothes and that would be more inconvenient for an Upper Bavarian homeland geek than a film that wants to make a thought-provoking statement dominate and cover up the topic. The gossip becomes an end in itself, and it's not even original gossip. We cannot laugh at the sheer silliness that rages off here in dramaturgically superfluous tavern fights, fountains that burst out at the wrong time and similar jokes, we can only cry. Especially since the director didn't curb the nonsense, but encouraged it very much. "

The lexicon of international films writes that it is a comedy that tries to provide a realistic view of the GDR rural population's attitudes towards consciousness and that it comes to surprisingly honest, critical conclusions, but that it is aesthetically rather undemanding.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Details about the film on the DEFA Foundation website
  2. ↑ Berliner Zeitung of September 7, 1960, p. 6
  3. ↑ Neue Zeit of September 14, 1960, p. 4
  4. ↑ What if ...? In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed August 29, 2018 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used