Qué hacer en caso de incendio

Well acted and sharply filmed, "What to Do in Case of Fire" showcases six radical German protesters from the Eighties, four of whom have taken on Yuppie identities. Two, one whose legs were cut off by a police vehicle during a demonstration, and his buddy, an unreconstructed rebel a la Berlin variety, still hope for Der Tag (whatever that might be).

This gang formerly used film to spread their message, insidiously splicing their propaganda takes into innocuous reels. A police raid results in the seizure of many reels of film which will implicate the six for their acts many years early. So what we have (predictably: no spoilers here) is a caper film, mostly comedy but with the requisite bitter dollop of drama - lost love as well as legs) in which the reunited sextet tries to figure out a way to get or destroy the films before the police have a sachertorte und popcorn screening.

There are both funny and sad moments in this American-produced film. The acting is fresh while the underlying story is not exactly original. But...the German radicals of the Seventies and later weren't funny. They killed and destroyed. They didn't project, I'm sure, the endearing qualities of our cohort of six including a got-rich-in-the-market ad exec who boasts of a Manhattan pad and wears an "I Love Bill Gates" shirt.

So a viewer has to put aside sensibilities and fears about the terrorism that is a constant part of our lives to enjoy this film. Okay, I did laugh a bit but I was uneasy as the group sought a solution that in real life could only result in bad things happening to many people. Slaptstick humor and terrorism? Belief really needs to be suspended.

All that said, as film "What to Do in Case of Fire" hangs together and will be enjoyable for many.

6/10. Available for rental on DVD.

My sister and I rented this movie becuase she was searching for someother movie to watch in German class besides "Europa, Europa". I didn't come into the movie with any expectations, and was really pleasantly surprised by how fun and compeling it was. I know nothing about German anarchists, maybe they were terrorits and shouldn't be sympathized with, but I was definatly rooting for them to get away. There were some less than perfect stuff (the rekindling of a romance is not well handled, nor is the love-interest interesting at all), but there were so many good things, they are easily overlooked by less nit-picking movie watchers.

The German punk soundtrack is a definate plus.

Jean

I found myself really enjoying this movie, at first. In fact I was living in Germany in 87-88, exactly the period the flashback part is set in.

I found myself enjoying this movie at first, it brought back memories. The portrayal of terrorists in a kind of situation comedy light didn't strike me as strange at first.

It was when they made a bomb out of a fire extinguisher that what I was watching finally struck me. Shortly before I came to Germany, just a couple of weeks before, somebody blew up a bomb made out of a fire extinguisher at the American PX in Frankfurt. It was basically an attempt to kill people at random. I don't remember how succesful it was.

The politics of the group that did it was mostly as confused and futile as that of the characters in the movie. Ostensibly communists but far from being anything resembling real communists.

Somehow after that this movie palled for me. I just couldn't get into watching killers portrayed as lovable but basically good-hearted knuckelheads with hearts of gold.

'What to do in case of fire' is an amazingly honest movie dealing with the anarchy past in Berlin pre reunification. A group of six ex-anarchists have a 'little' problem when a 12 year old bomb suddenly explodes in Berlin and they have to get a hold on a self-made movie showing evidence that they're responsible. While two of them are still active in demos and such, one is trying to hold on to her ideals while being a mother to two little children, the other three have completely turned away from their old ways and become 'respectable citizens'. This is the entertaining part, seeing these very different persons to come back together again and try to get their hide out of the situation without going to jail. But if you look deeper, this is a movie about the difference of people still living in the past and on the other hand people trying to forget their past, showing us that neither way will work.

It is simple to sympathize with the group, for their reluctance to hurt people, their very normal lives and their wish to change something in a world they don't feel they can accept.

In 1987, in Berlin, six young idealistic anarchic activists leave a handcrafted bomb in a mansion. Only thirteen years later the bomb explodes, wounding two persons. The police force, under the command of the experienced inspector Manowsky (Klaus Löwitsch), investigate the terrorist act and go to the old apartment, where Tim (Til Schweiger) and the crippled Hotte (Martin Feifel) live, collecting all possible evidences, including many films. One of these films show the group making the bomb, and Hotte and Tim decide to find the former four members of their group to tell them that they may go to jail, if the investigation watch the film. Maik (Sebastian Blomberg) is a successful man working in an advertisement agency; Terror (Matthias Matschke) is a lawyer; Nele (Nadja Uhl) is a mother of two children; and Flo (Doris Schretzmayer) is a mysterious wealthy woman. The group joins force and plots a plan to retrieve the film.

I am really impressed with the quality of the German movies released on DVD in Brazil in the last years. All of them are excellent films, including "Was Tun, Wenn's Brennt"? The dramatic story has action and humor and an unusual situation, with a good discussion between values, such as friendship, idealism and surrender to the system. The story has no clichés, and it is interesting to revisit the idealism that most of us have when we are young and try to embrace the world, and our "final destination" being part of the system. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "O Que Fazer Em Caso de Incêndio?" ("What to Do In Case of Fire?")