Herr Lehmann

The film opens with a great and also very funny scene. The drunken and tired Herr Lehmann walks down the streets to reach his apartment. Finally he sees himself confronted with an awful dog!

He grabs into his pockets and finds some booze. In the end both are more or less drunken, Lehmann and the dog.

Two police officers drive by and wonder about this strange event...

This film has everything you can laugh, cry or cheer about and in the end the Berlin Wall is teared down, too.

Go and see it.

There are two different words in the German language that translate into the word "you" in English. One of them is a formal word, that is being used when you refer/talk to someone you don't know that well or as a form of respect. The other is being used by friends. The former mostly is connected to you referring to the other person as Mister (Lehmann). And this is where one of the jokes of the movie lies. The use of that word and something might be impossible to translate (I have no idea how one would try to).

That might have been a lengthy explanation to a simple joke, but hopefully it also made clear, how the humor of the movie works. And a former VJ (MTV) is in the center of it all. Watching him take his first steps into "major" acting and succeeding is more than satisfying.

Of course you can't really compare Herr Lehmann to dramatic history reenactments like Der Untergang.

But Herr Lehman is so full of comedy, but also full of authenticism and a plot not devoid of drama. It's dialogues are outstanding, but then the book the film is based on was exceptional to begin with. And the best thing is, if you like the movie, you will like the books. Sven Regener managed to show his talent in storytelling and humour in both art forms, book and movie. The connections he makes, the way he connects what actually happens to Frank Lehmann's thoughts is the best use of basic rhetoric means I ever saw. He doesn't use the "rhetoric artillery" so to speak, but achieves literary greatness nevertheless.

The acting is on par with the quality of the script though. Even if I didn't expect Christian Ulmen to do any good acting ever, he produced the perfect rendition of the lazy, slightly hedonistic, disoriented Herr Lehmann. Detlev Buck is outstanding as well, as is nearly everybody in the supporting cast.

10/10 for humour, artistic style, acting, all that while staying serious.

BERLIN BLUES (Leander Haussmann - Germany 2003).

The film is set during the fall of 1989 in the run-down West-Berlin neighbourhood of Kreuzberg 36, an isolated corner of the city right next to the Berlin wall, mainly populated by a collection of misfits, artists, philosophers and drop-outs of all kinds. This is the world of Frank, alias Herr Lehmann (Christian Ulmen), who works as a bartender, takes live as it comes and generally lives in a pleasant bubble, unaware of the major events occurring in the outside world. His friend Karl (Detlev Buck), an artist who builds huge metal constructions, works in another bar, as does Katrin (Katja Danowski), the new chef, with whom he soon starts a turbulent relationship.

There are quite a few well-observed hilarious observations about Herr Lehmann's life in Kreuzberg, like an encounter with a whiskey-drinking dog, a confrontation with his visiting parents, a chaotic visit to East-Berlin and trouble in a gay-bar with "leather-Lily." The film's backdrop, with the fall of the Berlin wall in November 1989, Herr Lehmann's adventures seem to assume a certain importance, somewhat impaired with the occasionally flimsy and ridiculous occurrences in his life. In any other setting, the film would probably be less memorable than it is now. But that's probably the essential element what makes it work on many levels. The setting, Kreuzberg, and time in history, 1989, are the most potent ingredients for the film's relevance.

The late eighties' atmosphere is well served, with a good soundtrack by Eels, Violent Femmes, Calexico, Ween, Cake and Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. Above all, I watched this with great pleasure, because I lived in this particular part of Berlin and it still is my absolute favorite part of the city. It seems very little has changed since 1989. Many of the bar scenes were shot in Café "Zum Elefanten" on Heinrichplatz, typically the kind of place where the interior and personnel hasn't changed since 1970. The kind of place where you only come to get served, get a drink and talking is restricted to a minimum.

Frank Griebe, who also lensed Tom Tykwer's LOLA RENNT (1998), did the cinematography, but here it's not nearly as flashy as in as in LOLA RENNT. Whether that's a good or thing or not, i'll leave that decision to you. And, as one other commenter from that proud Hanseatic city in Northern-Germany already noted, the film displays one of the most conspicuous product placements in recent German film.

Camera Obscura --- 7/10

feels a lot like going back deep into the late 80`s in Germany. Lot`s of beer, music and men`s talk. Great performance from Christian Ulmen aka Herr Lehmann in his first feature film.