Alles auf Zucker!

Wow, I can't say for how long I have been waiting for a film like this! I was always looking enviously over to America where they have films with, say, a dozen characters and one of them happens to be Jewish. But neither the Shoah is mentioned, nor Israel nor any other "typically Jewish" topics. These characters are Jewish like others are catholic or Mormon or atheist. Great. We never had this here in the last decades and I wondered when at last we would be treated to films like that made in Germany.

This film might not be 100% brilliant, but it's funny, it's very good and worth its while and money. Originally made only for Arte TV, they decided to get it into cinema first. And what a great idea this was! Hopefully more films like this will follow, so that we all can go another step on the way back to normal. Because it is normal to see black German characters, Turkish-German characters and Jewish German characters and what else in films and series and plays. So, writers, sit yourself down and write. Directors and producers are hopefully waiting for good scripts! They better be...

"Go for Zucker! (Alles auf Zucker!)" is a broad, comic take on East vs. West reconciliation issues in Germany today that was done better in "Goodbye, Lenin!."

Co-writer/director Dani Levy goes further in making German audiences comfortable to laugh at their 20th century history by somewhat ridiculously adding in the Jewish issue, both past and contemporary. He makes it safe to joke about the Holocaust and its aftermath.

There have been countless comedies through the decades that have scheming beneficiaries pretend something or other in order to claim an inheritance (marriage, children, etc. etc.). Here, the premise is Jewish brothers and their families separated by the construction of the Berlin Wall need to reconcile and be observant Jews. But the joke, as they accuse each other, is that one grew up with the religious attitudes of Stalin and the other like the Ayatollah.

This is first played for very broad laughs, as the ex-Communist brother's estranged Aryan wife frantically tries to learn Jewish household rules through a kind of "Kosher for Dummies" book, while he's off gambling. Similarly, the Orthodox Jewish family displays every stiff visual stereotype of piety known to film, from the long beards to the triple chins on the wife.

The actors playing the older generation who lived through Germany's traumas are very world-weary effective. There's a lot of running around like a French parlor comedy. Their adult kids are mostly silly and too slapsticky sexually confused. Maybe it's a German comic thing that the men are all passive dolts, the women are sexually aggressive and their relationships make no sense.

The best parts of the film are when the brother from the East is comically doing his funny grifter thing to get into a pool tournament and, at the opposite end of the emotional spectrum, when the brothers actually start to communicate about how history tore up their family. This makes history personal and poignant amidst the laughs. Everyone turns out to have faults and secrets, including the rabbi who is supposed to moderate. Some of the Frankfurt vs. Berlin jokes probably have more meaning to the German audience.

For all the film's silliness and stereotypes, it does end up endearing.

The subtitling is very difficult for an American audience. The opening credits are very funny, with the Eastern brother talking to and over the camera (a technique that continues throughout the swooping camera work). However, the subtitles are mixed in with the credits and are impossible to read. The subtitlers just assumed that any English speakers coming to see the film would understand Yiddish, as all the Yiddish expressions by the Western brother and his family are just transliterated as Yiddish and are not translated, though some words are not that widely part of American conversation and could be a problem for some viewers.

Lighten up. It's a movie. It's not real life. Enjoy it for what it is. I laughed out loud in the theater continually. These are romantic movie characters. My belief was definitely suspended. i recommend this movie to others constantly as one of the best I've seen this year. Reality TV is no more real than these characters. It's refreshing to finally see a German comedy rather than the pap that the American cinema churns out. There are many twists in this movie that will add levity to your day. Go Go Go And take someone with you. Germany has become so strict and gloomy in the world's eye that it's great they can cross boundaries that many are scared to talk about. C'mon we're all people. We all have beliefs. We should be able to laugh at ourselves and certainly have to ability to see the human in this mortal existence.

A pretty good, though not outstanding comedy with a pretty amazing premise. A Jewish mother dies, leaving a will that will only be decided if she's given a proper Jewish burial, and if her two sons would bury the hatchet. The problem is, is that one of her sons is totally Orthodox Jewish, and the other one is definitely not. BUT WE'LL TRY! Oh right, the unorthodox guy has an important pool tournament that takes place smack in the middle of the Jewish observance of his Mom's death. Plenty of other problems raise their head, and most of it is quite funny. The script though, does lose steam about 3/4 of the way through, but this made me laugh at the right places,

There's been a media buzz surrounding this movie since its release in Germany. It is a bittersweet satirical comedy on the relationship between Jewish and non-Jewish Germans, making it - to my knowledge - the first movie of its kind and utterly successful.

Since the Shoah, there has been a perception among the majority of non-Jewish Germans that Jewish people in this country have to be treated with velvet gloves in every respect. This perception is strengthened further by the fact that due to the small number of Jewish communities in Germany, many non-Jewish Germans don't know Jewish people personally, thus creating an abstract image of easily offended Jews who have to be treated with utmost political correctness.

This movie by Dani Levy puts things into perspective again, demonstrating that despite the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany against the Jewish population, one nowadays is allowed to laugh about curiosities caused by Jewish rituals like problems in keeping the household going during Shabbat or about other Jewish/non-Jewish incompatibilities without breaking a taboo. Both Jewish and non-Jewish stereotypes are equally poked fun at in this movie, and with its intentional and charming political incorrectness and spot-on irony on this complex and sensitive matter, it is hilariously funny and an absolute must-see! I am convinced that this movie will help bring relations of Jewish/non-Jewish Germans to a more normal, more natural level, based on more mutual understanding. But even for those not looking so much for a movie with a message, but rather for an evening highlight of clever entertainment and big laughter, this is an ideal choice!

9/10