Hai-Alarm am Müggelsee

... the urge to just walk away will be that strong. It's really tough to get through the first 10 minutes and it won't get better. I promise.

"Hai-Alarm" is not about sharks. It is not just another parody on silly genre movies ending up being even more ridiculous and far less funny than they are. It is all about Friedrichshagen, a borough in the outskirts of Berlin, with a population of less than 20.000. That's where the author and director Leander Haußmann grew up. Except for the 20.000 it's hard to tell, what kind of audience this movie was supposed to attract. It is most likely the most provincial Berlin movie ever. It looks like it has been made by dilettantes, but it is actually an extra long insider joke, made by a bunch of well-known German artists from the higher echelons of the theater and movie world, who wanted to do something stupid and funny. Funny how?

Well, they are all into humoristic strangeness, into a very low-key, sometimes barely noticeable kind of humor. In some ways it feels like a homage to the 1990s:

• Frank Castorf (Frank Konopke). In the 90s he was the most critically acclaimed theater director in Germany. His meandering stagings often had a vibe quite similar to that of "Hai-Alarm". Henry Hübchen (the major) played the protagonist in many of them.

• Sven Regener (Co-author, co-director). From 1991 to 1994 he and his band Element of Crime released three marvelous, classic albums, with unobtrusive humorous lyrics. The songs he wrote for "Hai-Alarm" sound similar, but after a while they do get a bit on the annoying side.

• Detlev Buck (Polizist Müller). In the 90s he was famous for the very special, dry & laconic humour in the movies he wrote and directed. They were based country comedies - refreshingly different from the usual quirky urban comedies. Again, "Hai-Alarm" is probably the most provincial movie about Berlin ever.

It is possible to find things of cultural significance in "Hai-Alarm", it's possible to understand some of the more obscure references. It's possible to enjoy this movie, it'a just not very likely. Hell, it's even possible that some of the numerous gags will make you laugh.

One of the references hardly anybody will get: At a press conference the mayor is asked questions in English, French and Russian. He answers fluently in the same language. It's a long and pointless scene. "Hai-Alarm" is from 2013, in 2009 a guy from the BBC asked then German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle, if he could ask in English and if the minister could please answer in English. Westerwelle rejected the request. Most people would consider this to be normal and trivial. Some very special Germans cried "Scandal! Provincial!", because of this refusal. But extensively mocking this nothingburger years later? That's really too special. Then the scene gets even more special: The whole hall starts to sing: "Friedrichshagen, you woman of ill repute". This box-office disaster most certainly did not better her reputation. ("Bad German Movies"-Review No. 18)

After I read about this film, I knew I had to see it. When I lived in Berlin, I actually spent a lot of time in Friedrichshagen (where most of the action in the movie takes place) so it was a bit nostalgic for me. I'm also a sucker for low-budget shark movies. Regardless of my reasons for seeing it, I thought it was overall funny and entertaining. This is pretty much strictly a comedy with no real shark action, so if you're looking for that, this isn't your movie. After doing a little research on the movie, I saw that the term "nonsense film" was getting thrown around a lot, and I think I have to agree with the use of this term. Almost everything about the movie is very far-fetched and nonsensical, but it also offers some good deadpan humor as well some funny slapstick moments. Not all of the jokes are winners though, and some tend to drag on for too long. Watching this in America may also pose a problem, as their are English subtitles (although not the greatest) but the DVD is only released in region 2. Also, I think you have to have lived in Germany (and better yet Berlin/Freidrichshagen) to appreciate some of the humor. Overall though, I found it to be very entertaining if you're looking for a goofy shark movie that doesn't take itself seriously at all.

Synopsis: "Friedrich Hagen at the beautiful Mueggelsee in Berlin has a problem: the bitten hand the lifeguard indicates that a security risk floats in water. Every effort is made to displace the problem, but sometime is not so funny: The shark alarm is declared! A devilish mixture of intrigue and anger, love and hate, power and city marketing developed a pressure under which the boiler Friedrichshagener civilization threatens to explode in an inferno of madness"

I used Google Translate to translate this film's weird title into English, but the result also turned out to be weird and almost meaningless. Shark Alarm? Guess it was simply lost in translation.

This charmingly-silly film has a lot of in-jokes about Berlin rivalries, a bunch of absurdist random scenes, one superb single-take street-walk, a fantastic painterly image (you'll know which one when you see it, especially if you appreciate Kubrick's Barry Lyndon) and first-rate acting from all...we got here a rare likeable German slapstick.

I'm a Köpenicker myself so felt right at home, just not sure if outsiders could get into it. Even German non-Berliners will struggle with a lot of the humour as it's very localised.