European Films

Do you remember that small film from Germany about a kid played by Daniel Brühl who tried to keep the fall of the Berlin wall from his ill mother in their 79 m² apartment in Berlin? Good Bye Lenin! was a comedy that was not really a comedy because at heart it was a political and heartfelt film in which there just happened to be a lot of opportunities to laugh. It seemed impossible that anytime soon a similar, if not better, political yet heartfelt film should come along and one that stars Daniel Brühl again to boot. Austrian director and co-screenwriter Hans Weingartner can be credited for the creation of this unlikely film; the film is called Die fetten Jahren sind vorbei (The Edukators) and as with Good Bye Lenin! it defies genre (is it a thriller? Is it a love story?) but is above all political and heartfelt.

Daniel Brühl (who also starred in Weingartner’s Das Weiße Rauschen/White Noise) stars here as Jan, a belated hippie who lives in Berlin together with his best hippie friend Peter (Stipe Erceg). They do not only drink wine and smoke pot and talk about the upcoming revolution, but actually act upon their desire to change the world. By night they break into rich men’s villas and move everything around and pile the furniture up in unexpected formations. They do not steal anything, but leave a message for when the bourgeois owners will return from their night out. There are two possible varieties: either "You have too much money" or the titular "The fat years are over". They sign their notices with "The Edukators" (which is the English language title); apparently they are anarchists even when it comes to spelling.Their grand purpose is to shock the rich and make them think aboutthe unfair division of the riches of this planet.     

Their two-man crusade turns into a nightmare when Peter leaves for a weekend to Barcelona and he asks Jan to help out his girlfriend Jule who has to move out of her apartment urgently because of money troubles. Initially Jan and Jule hate each other, but gradually they become friends. Jan eventually lets Jule in on the secret of his night-time edukational sprees with Peter and after Peter's return the three of them are inside the house of the rich Mr Hardenberg (Gerhardt Klaußner, Brühl’s father in Good Bye, Lenin!) who was solely responsible for the eviction of Jule from her apartment. Of course, this is where things go wrong and soon the three of them find themselves in the Austrian Alps with a hostage on their hands and their ideals about turning this world into a better place up in the air. Rather than protecting the innocent of the world, they are now out to protect their own guilty asses. How could it have come this far?     

Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei is both a love-letter to the generation that grew up in the sixties and wanted to change the world and an accusation of conformity to that same generation. What happened to all the anarchists, hippies and idealists? Today they are the rich and wealthy right-wing bourgeoisie that are keeping up the system they fought against forty years ago. It reminded me of the first few lines of a Joni Mitchell song, in which she declares dead her ideal of world peace:

Sitting in a park in Paris, France / Reading the news and it sure looks bad / They won’t give peace a chance / That was just a dream some of us had.     

With the new generation of Edukators as embodied by the three young, charismatic and sexy actors there seems to be a similar clash of interests. Free love, food and wealth for all seems like a great idea until, perhaps, some of your own comfort is denied if you are too non-conformist. This balancing trick of ideals is as difficult as it makes for interesting drama in Weingartner’s film. The film is meant to be condemning and inspiring at the same time, both depressing and uplifting and as astounding as it may sound, it actually achieves all of these things. The script is very strong and the three young actors are all radiant and utterly believable. The cinematography (which is mostly handheld video) is excellent; it lends an intimacy and urgency to the proceedings that underlines both the story and the ways of its characters.       

Two minor weak links keep this film from becoming a true classic. I was never really convinced by Klaußner’s rich man’s attitude, his acting is too low-key and his dialogue and motivations are severely underwritten. Secondly, the second part of the film, which takes places in Austria, could have used a tighter editing as the story’s urgency seems to get lost in the meandering shots of the Alpine scenery. Nevertheless, Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei is an incredibly energetic, brave and ultimately winning feature. Would the next director willing to make a genre-defying, heartfelt and political picture starring Daniel Brühl please get ready?

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