Cosa fare in caso di incendio?

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?")

I finally found a German film, with English subtitles at the DVD rental store. Having seen Til Schweiger in Driven recently I was excited to see him in an authentic German production. And the film starts out well as we see the 6 radical friends going from being anarchists to most of them living pretty normal live, even to the point of betraying their original believes. In some ways I think people that lived through this might have a depth of understanding which I'm lacking having been brought up in very protective environment in Iceland. Therefore for an outsider, I felt that the film should have spent a little bit more time on defining what they were objecting to, what drove them, if you like. And the film had a strange balance of reality and humor, which did work, though unusual. When the film neared to its closure I felt it lost height a bit, becoming a little bit too Americanized. Unusual and well worth seeing. 7/10

The films that I have seen out of Germany are limited I admit, but the ones I have been seeing are just wonderful. I have added to my list of German favorites which include RUN LOLA RUN and THE HARMONISTS, the charming an edgy dramedy WHAT TO DO IN CASE OF FIRE? The characters in this film simply crackle. The plot about a reunion of 80's anarchists zooms along to its conclusion. The film is both funny and real.

Once upon a time, there were six friends with a vision of a future in complete freedom, without the restrictions of a government stifling those too young and too foolish to stay within the bounds of what is 'normal'. So these friends lovingly created a homemade bomb and documented the whole process for posterity. They planted the bomb... and forgot all about it. Until twenty years later, when it finally blew up.

Twenty years later, only two of the six are still members of that "Scene" in Berlin, while the others have gone off to get married, have kids, drive Mercedes, make millions in their very own advertisement company or become district attorneys (!). Of course, their later careers will be of little interest, once the police have had a chance to look through the confiscated film material...

This is a great movie, about visions, friendship, solidarity - and anarchy. The plot is solid (in a Bond kind of way), and there is a deliciously ironic final twist.

So, what do you do, when there's a fire burning? Well, let it burn!

Naturally.

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.