1810 - Für eine Handvoll Kaspressknödl

I think at this point it is important to explain the background of this film and I also believe that metaphors would be the best to describe it as this movie is full of them.

Tyrol is a province in Western Austria, its people traditionally stubborn, tough but very soft on the inside. Core of their identity is a freedom fighter named Andreas Hofer, a guy who led the Tyroleans to two victories against the French and Bavarian armies in 1809 - even Napoleon was impressed. So he is the Che Guevara of Tyrol and represents the pride of these peoples.

In recent decades there have been many glorifications of this character, adding myth and legend and ultimately completely distorting the actual truth about his nature and beliefs. Now we have film here that does exactly the opposite.

This film assumes that Hofer was not even Austrian but a German who was abandoned as a child due to the black death. That's where the chaos starts. Even though he was raised in Tyrol he doesn't speak the native dialect but "High German", alienating him from the rest of the villagers who desperately try to make him "Tyrolean".

In almost every scene 1810 quotes famous Hollywood movies like Kill Bill, 300 and the Exorcist. At some points it seems like it doesn't even try to be convincing but that's probably also due to the fact the makers had virtually no budget at all. Most of the actors are volunteers and the makers, who are also the writers, producers, directors etc, appear in multiple roles throughout the movie. That again gives this production a little bit of a South Park characteristic as they do an incredible job in portraying each character.

Yes, the humor might not be everyone's cup of tea as it is very in-your-face slapstick with a timbre of Monty Python mixed with traditional Tyrolean wit. For Tyroleans this poses the biggest problem. It isn't really patriotic, no, exactly the opposite - it questions too many "facts" that traditional Tyroleans rely on and runs over them like a bulldozer, sometimes charmingly but mostly mercilessly.

I found it to be highly original and a welcome refreshment to the constant over-glorification of a character that actually rather stood for old merits and a conservative society. No doubt, this film is for a younger generation that is open to discuss history, the elders will definitely blindly reject this piece.

...but I thoroughly enjoyed it!

This gets 6/10 from me, but only because it's quite accomplished for a basically no-budget production; the makers are standup comedians from Tyrol and this is their first "professional" work. 1810 is an absurd comedy targeting the difficult (and sometimes violent) relations between Tyroleans and their northern neighbors, the Germans (not differentiated here into Bavarians and Prussians, big mistake), and the Tyrolean fight during the Napoleonic wars - true patriots might want to stay away from this film!

The gags hit as often as they miss, but overall the pacing is rather slow for a comedy, and many of the gags rely on language/wordplay or cultural idiosyncrasies so there's only a very limited audience for this film. Still, it's at least a fun evening for initiates - and for others something to shake their heads about in an incredulous way ...