Herr Lehmann

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.

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.

As a fan of Sven Regener's (Author of Novel and Screenplay) Band "Element of Crime" I read the book and was really looking forward to see this picture. In some way I was hoping for a better "Soloalbum", an other adaptation of a German so-called "Pop-Novel". After seeing Soloalbum I really had the desire to kill just anyone involved in this movie that was nothing but let's say an average Romantic Comedy, having deleted all the cynicism, the melancholy the humor and the truth which made the book so marvelous.

But let's get back to Herr Lehmann: I got what I hoped for!

Sven Regener carefully adapted his own story for the big screen, transforming some words into images, thoughts into dialogs, leaving out what had to be left out and keeping this special humor that was one of the characteristics of the book. The only thing I missed is the Chapter about the "Ku'damm-Bus", which I would have loved to see on screen, but who cares about this detail...

The cast (consisting of some of the best German On-Screen-Actors of the "old school" and a bunch of great Newcomers) is nearly perfect. It would take to long to name all the actors who played their roles so authentic and sometimes getting into the field of warm-hearted satire. The one that takes it all is obviously Detlev Buck playing Herr Lehmann's best friend Karl in a way that will be remembered for long time, I suppose.

The soundtrack is really cool and the photography by Frank Griebe (besides Michael Ballhaus probably the best German Cinematographer at present) finds the perfect images to illustrate the life of the Boheme in West-Berlin at the end of the 80s.

Leander Haußmann after all succeeded in even topping his first movie "Sonnenallee" and is now responsible for two of the best German pictures of the past years.

I definitely recommend this one to people interested in German movies.

It is a very simple story of a waiter working in a 'beer pub', but nicely told and filled with warmth which the actors carry. Hard to imagine that Christian Ulmen used to be a MTV moderator before starting acting, and Detlev Buck is so great in this one!

Want to see a 'different' movie on West/East-Germany? Then, go try it! While you might not get anything of the power of 'La Vita E Bella' or 'Amores Perros', it is a nice little comedy and gives good insights on how people in the catering branche did work before the 'Mauerfall' (wall fell)..

Frank is a barman in 1989 West Berlin. Everyone calls him Herr Lehmann, much to his annoyance at times- but then, he's not really all that bothered, as he lives his life day to day, beer to beer, without much of a plan or direction, happy just to hang out with his mates and do the same bar hopping routine over and over. His comfortable state of leisure is disrupted when he meets attractive but tough chef Katrin, his parents visit him unexpectedly, and his best friend Karl starts going insane. And of course, a couple doors down, on the other side of the wall, a whole new level of turmoil is starting to brew...

Well, where to start? The acting is great, with former MTV cutie Christian Ulmen giving a brilliantly lazy, laconic "am I bovveeeered?!" kind of performance. Detlev Buck steals many of Ulmen's scenes as artist stroke party animal Karl. I know Buck's a director, producer, and whatnot, but I love him as an actor. He's just able to create these hilarious, memorable characters, does deadpan like no other- and as Karl he sports the most incedible mullet (or Vokuhila, as we call it).

I'd expected more eighties nostalgia in set and costume design, and music, but the film pretty much stayed clear of that. Even the dialogue sounded like it could have come from any period. (The mullet does make up for that, though. Big time.) I did think the atmosphere of late 80s West Berlin was captured well enough though, with the countless Eckkneipen and these types that just live for the next night out and are simply to cool to be bothered about what's happening around them. I've met enough of those myself, albeit not in Berlin, and love how the film manages to thoroughly take the mickey out of them while still presenting them as likable characters.

Dialogue is witty, with some great, pointless beer conversations about basically nothing.

There are points when the film seems to drag a little, just like Herr Lehmann's life- nothing much happens.

The soundtrack is well-picked, though like with all modern German movies seems to have been put together by someone who hasn't quite realised that there have been songs written in languages other than English. That said, there is some seriously funky music in there.

All in all, I absolutely loved this and would strongly recommend it. Even just for the mullet.

9/10