Like the ancients sang ...

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Movie
Original title Like the ancients sang ...
Country of production GDR
original language German
Publishing year 1987
length 94 minutes
Rod
Director Günter Reisch
script Günter Reisch
Hans Weber
production DEFA , KAG "Johannisthal"
music Wolfram Heicking
Reinhard Walter
camera Andreas Köfer
cut Monika Schindler
occupation

Wie die Alten sungen ... is a German DEFA film directed by Günter Reisch in 1987 .

action

Walter Lörke is preparing for a quiet Christmas Eve. The children have canceled their attendance. The widow Klinkenhöfer is happy about that, as she has long been hoping for a cozy evening with her apartment neighbors. But nothing comes of it. Lörke's daughter Anne tells him on the phone that her daughter Maria and thus his 17-year-old granddaughter, who is only called Twini, has disappeared. She fell out with her parents because she started an apprenticeship as a mail carrier and does not want to attend advanced high school until she graduated from high school. And that although her parents as teachers have the connections to place her there despite a lack of academic performance. That's exactly what Twini doesn't want. So she moved out of her parents' home to share a flat with her school friends King and Klucke. This was possible because Kluckes mother was in Mexico, where she worked as a foreign trade employee. Twini had her first sexual relations with King and she is expecting a child from Klucke. He doesn't want that, but King would like to marry her instead. When Kluckes mother announces a visit, the apartment has to be vacated quickly and Twini tries to stay with her grandpa. She also tells him that he is going to be a great-grandfather. That leaves the otherwise quick-witted speechless - and he suddenly remembers that Christmas Eve in 1961. At that time, his daughter Anne was sitting in front of him to announce Twini: "How the old people sang ...".

Now the apartment is slowly filling up. Lörke's daughter Anne comes by looking for her child and is happy to find it here. Only that King is here too irritates her, since he went to the same school as Twini and she was the principal. When her husband arrives and the matter of fatherhood is cleared up, he first goes in search of Klucke, the child's father. He's doing a student aid mission in a maternity hospital on Christmas Eve. The mother-in-law Walter Lörkes, who lives in the retirement home, also comes to visit. The evening is rounded off by the arrival of Karl Lörke, Walter's son, with his wife and two children. Now comes Klucke, who was brought in by King. Twini and her father arrive again and Kluckes mother also found the way to the roast goose, which was donated by Mrs. Klinkenhöfer. Despite all the problems, after a lot of noise and confusing discussions, everything ends in harmony.

production

Wie die Alten sungen… was filmed by DEFA, group “Johannisthal”, on ORWO -Color in Dresden and had its premiere on January 22nd, 1987 in the Berlin Colosseum cinema . The first broadcast on television in the GDR took place on November 24, 1987 in the first program. After 24 years this is a continuation of the stories from the DEFA film " Oh, you happy ... " from 1962, with the actors of the time. For Andreas Dresen it was the first Defa film in which he worked as an assistant director.

criticism

Günter Sobe found in the Berliner Zeitung : “The Dresden extended family Lörke - ancestral grandfather, mother and child, who are now fully functional in their half-intact state - are now ultimately successfully debating all the pending problems for one Christmas Eve and if they have not died after another twenty-five years, it could do something similar again. The film is a rarity right from the start. Where can anyone continue a movie from twenty-five years ago with the same actors? And if so, who dares? "

Helmut Ullrich from the Neue Zeit noticed that the repeatedly inserted excerpts from the earlier film not only create references in terms of content, but also offer obvious comparisons. The film turns "Wie die Alten sungen" into a declaration of love from the director to the cast of "Oh, you happy", is a nice throwback. Anyone who went to the cinema back then could almost become maudlin, and those who only do so in the meantime benefit from it.

Horst Knietzsch from New Germany preceded his criticism that the evening at the cinema was a success for the actor Erwin Geschonneck, the playful ensemble, the authors and the director. The audience thanked them with warm applause for an entertaining, cheerful film.

The lexicon of international films wrote that the film does not achieve the social explosiveness of the old film, which reflected political and generational conflicts, and is completely neglected here in favor of upright, superficial entertainment.

Awards

  • 1987: Art Prize of the FDGB for Günter Reisch (direction and book), Hans Weber (book), Gerd Gericke (dramaturge), Erwin Geschonneck (actor)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ New Times of February 26, 1960
  2. ^ "From human comedy today" in the Berliner Zeitung of January 24, 1987 p. 7
  3. ^ "Christmas surprise a generation later" in the Neue Zeit of January 23, 1987 p. 4
  4. ^ "A film for and with Erwin Geschonneck" in Neues Deutschland from January 23, 1987 p. 6
  5. ^ As the old sung ... In: Lexicon of international film . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used