Who doesn't like intelligent allusions? Well, when it reaches 10 allusions in 3 seconds it becomes painful. Loriot had all the time in the world to write the script, but you are supposed to decode it in real time? The film is like a textbook in mathematics. I mean, there were actually plans to set areas under water at the time, I even know a precise case this seemingly boring sexual joke refers to, the Schnackenmoor, where I liked to ride my bicycle until they created a pond there, put some park benches in front of it, where you can listen to the birds that must be there somewhere, hidden from view, and called the whole thing a bog. And so it goes with everything the film dishes out, either you constantly hit pause or you surrender, simply call the whole thing silly and tell yourself that there's no way all of that means something, but of course, every time you stop to think about it, it actually does.
By the way, the Schnackenmoor is in Hamburg, Germany, and although Loriot's dialect points towards Berlin, his two films are so obviously set in Hamburg that that alone is painful enough. He was quite similar to John Cleese in his humor, really, but whereas John Cleese mocks the British for being stiff, because they're afraid of the aristocracy, Vicco von Bülow (i.e. Loriot), an aristocrat himself, mocks Hamburg's well to do for being stiff, because they are too unsophisticated to successfully emulate royalty. By the way, Katherina Schell von Bauschlott (On Her Majesty's Secret Service, The Return of the Pink Panther) is sophisticated enough, if you want to understand Loriot's frustration.
There's one gag here, the hair cutter, I don't know whether Loriot stole it from the Sledge Hammer episode Sledgepoo, or whether great minds think alike, but I saw it coming, independently of that, and it is very typical really: Some stupid sexual innuendo for the parents and an absolutely wickedly clever gag for the kids who can take in all the details. Both as a script writer and in his role as Paul Winkelmann Loriot revels in his second childhood, that is acting like a boy of 6 with the life experience of a 60 year old, when he proposes to give Evelyn Hamann 10% for her co-operation, he expresses the pride of an entire city in its mercantile education. Usually, when you ask somebody, if you can get some percent off, when you pay in cash, they just say no, but in Hamburg they usually say: I'm so glad I found somebody who understands the business model of credit card companies! Of course!
Ah well, I think this should give pretty much everybody on this planet an idea, what this film is like. Loriot is dearly missed, the Federal Republic of Germany losing him is like the German Empire losing Bismarck.
