Arbeit für Alle

FULL EMPLOYMENT is a short film by the German duo Thomas Oberlies and Matthias Vogel . To be honest I only saw it because it was shown in conjunction with the world premier of Gerard Johnson's TONY but I'm very glad I did

The film is in the style of a mockumentary with a youth pushing an old man around in a wheelchair inter-cut with a team leader stating that a lot of people don't appreciate the experience the elderly bring to a job . Being a German film I was expecting some comment on Germany's dark past and euthanasia but when the Senior citizen and the youth took the lift up to the office my jaw hit the figurative floor - I wasn't expecting that

This is a very witty , cleverly made short film that blends comedy with horror and one wants to see Oberlies and Vogel branch in to feature length movies . If nothing else they'll be able to break down the long held erroneous myth that Germans don't have a sense of humor

Well not anymore! At least not if you live in the world of this semi-documentary ... well actually it's not even near a documentary, more like a "mockumentary", that also spoofs the German job center. While it starts off kinda light (still funny and dark hearted though), it soon get's explicit ... not for the faint of hearted this is then! And while the spoof and sarcasm works very good, it sometimes just feels as if it tries to be more "clever" than it actually is (no pun intended of course!!).

Still this is a short movie and it delivers pretty good on it's premise The best thing was, that after the screening at the Fantasy Filmfest in 2008, the makers came on stage and talked about how the movie got made. Quite interesting (especially how they got the movie "financed") stories they had to tell ... I'm sure we'll be hearing from those guys again!