Nelken in Aspik

Armin Mueller-Stahl is certainly one of the best-known and internationally acknowledged actors of the former GDR - yet this movie cannot be regarded as one of his highlights. The story about the surprising promotion of an adman - due to the fact that he can only mumble after having lost some teeth - is really foolish and does not reflect in any way the reality of the country. It is not very funny to see Mueller-Stahl footling around. Even as a parable on the PR business, the movie does not really suit. Wouldn't it provide a couple of good laughs - for example regarding the GDR airline "DDAir" - the whole opus would have to be considered an annoyance. All in all: Save your time and don't watch this film.

This movie may only be truly entertaining to people who had at least a glimpse of life in East Germany when it still was the communist GDR. All advertising in all of East Germany was in the hands of one single company, the Deutsche Werbe- und Anzeigengesellschaft (Dewag). It was directly owned by the ruling party SED. Most goods that East Germans really wanted weren't available anyway (it was a common habit to join a waiting queue as soon as you detected one, because you could be sure that something very rare was on sale, like pineapples or bananas). Dewag's main purpose therefore was to spread communist propaganda. Dewag also used to mimic West German advertising best they could, because many East Germans saw it on TV (although it was punishable by law) and the Communist party tried hard to give them the illusion life was even better in the East.

So that is the background for this movie. The puns and the humor are addressed to an East German audience trained to read between the lines. It is a real wonder the movie not only got made but also released in the GDR. For whatever reason it initially had escaped censorship. It didn't last long in the movie theaters, though.