« Immer nie am Meer – Forever Never Anywhere Farce | Home | Das Wunder von Bern – German Football Legend »
Herr Lehmann – Westalgie Blues in Berlin-Kreuzberg
By Gregor Sedlag | August 12, 2008
Given that Leander Haussmann’s Sonnenallee (1999) was the mother of all Ostalgie films, TV shows, and other phenomena coinciding with the tenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, this “nostalgia for the GDR” goes a long way to explain why Good Bye, Lenin! (Germany, 2003) became such a huge success at the box office. By the same coin, Sonnenallee, wrapped in the sentimental style of an ironic, witty film musical, appeared on the scene too early to ride the wave to international success. But it did set the stage for the director’s hilarious sequel – Herr Lehmann (Germany, 2003).
Herr Lehmann (Berlin Blues) also mirrors a similar phenomenon of our times – Westalgie, a nostalgia for how the clock ticked in the West before the fall of the wall. Along these lines there was another earlier film that set the stage for this new genre: Hans Christian Schmid’s 23 (1998), with August Diehl as a computer hacker on his way to paranoia in the leaden, slow-moving 1980s. Move along on the time machine to the late 1980s and you have Herr Lehmann, a portrait of the last days of the old “Bonner Republic.” In this film that epoch, that moment in time, now seems more passé, more distant, more hermetic than ever before depicted on the screen.
Herr Lehmann throws light on a quite unique and special moment in Berlin’s Biotop. The setting is Kreuzberg in the summer of 1989. “Berlin-Kreuzberg SO36 is a little cosmos in the great galaxy. Even the other half of Kreuzberg, SO61, is a foreign country … and Berlin-Charlottenberg is another continent … while East Berlin in the GDR – is a distant planet …” (to quote from the film’s press book). But, as is usual in any walk down memory lane, one must forget about certain bothersome events during that revolutionary year, such as the “May Day Festival” that ended in a riot worthy of the South Bronx. In other words, the idyll of SO36 before the Wende is like living in a buffer-zone – a Greenwich Village of the 1960s, if you will.
The Lehmann-world is “peopled with philosophers, artists, beer-drinkers, cokers, straights, gays, and other individuals with a life style unique to this enclave, all of whom will defend any form of change that threatens the status quo.” Thus, the shock of May First is simply drunk peacefully away and wiped out of memory as the summer wears on.
The problems of Herr Lehmann – his real name is Frank, but because he is about to turn thirty, everybody calls him “Herr Lehmann” – are really not very important, although not at all untypical. Played to the hilt by MTV moderator Christian Ulmen, Herr Lehmann is what you would call a catalyzer, around whom some big and little dramas of the city can run their course. The one drama that really counts is the fate of “my best friend Karl” – a self-styled welder-sculptor-artist, played with élan by Detlev Buck, whose illusions of grandeur lead to psychosis.
Meanwhile, in East Berlin, but a stone’s throw away, the whole German Democratic Republic is about to implode (suspense – Lehmann turns thirty on 9 November 1989! – still a date like any other). Herr Lehmann shows us the seclusion of an endearing milieu, one that has seen its day and is about to end. A bit later, the wall will fall, a cold but fresh wind will blow through the enclave, and a great outbreak will greet the completely unaware protagonists. That, of course, is another story – a tale for the 1990s and the Berlin-Mitte-Boom.
Sven Regener, author of the novel Herr Lehmann, founded the “Element of Crime” band in 1985. His albums, Damals hinterm Mond (Back Then Behind the Moon) and Weisses Papier (White Paper), were popular hits. Regener also penned the screenplay for Herr Lehmann. The film, however, appears to be less a farewell ode to “Kreuzberg 36” than a light sentimental account of the times. The scenes depicting the fall of the wall could easily have captured the inconceivable esprit of that breakout instead of just skimming over the historical event. Another weakness is the screening of Star Wars in a movie theater – the scene was relegated to an amateur film travesty, as though Haussmann is not quite sure what position he’s supposed to take. By contrast, the premiere gala in Kreuzberg (the Markthalle in the Pücklerstrasse) – on the original location where most of the film was shot – was all the more striking! You asked yourself: am I still watching a movie … or am I already in Herr Lehmann?
– Gregor Sedlag
Topics: Film Reviews | Comments Off on Herr Lehmann – Westalgie Blues in Berlin-Kreuzberg
Comments are closed.