Ernst Stoetzner

Alienation, heartbreak, and hogs prove to be a fatal combination in this offbeat black comedy from writer and director Jobst Oetzmann. Elias (Janek Rieke) is an aspiring author living in Hamburg who, while interviewing his Aunt Gisela (Rosemarie Fendel) for a writing project, makes the startling discovery that his cousin, Gunther (Thomas Schmauser), has taken his own life. Though Elias wasn't close to Gunther, the news still comes as a shock, and he decides to travel to Gunther's hometown of East Westphalia to find out exactly what happened. Despite the lack of assistance from Gunther's unfriendly parents and the troublesome antics of a pack of bullies, Elias begins to piece together Gunther's sad story. The product of an eccentric upbringing from a family of butchers, Gunther grew up bright but painfully reserved, and after his romance with an American girl (Dynelle Rhodea) was scotched by interference from his parents, he began to develop a strange philosophy centered around the noble nature of pigs. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The tense drama Klassenfeind takes place inside one classroom, as the students express themselves with growing degrees of animosity and polarization, until the schoolroom itself suffers as much damage at their hands as they have suffered internally. The issues that cause trouble among the students are unemployment, a large, poor minority group (the Turks), and the tendency to resort to violence to solve problems. Originally an award-winning play by Nigel Williams for the London stage, this 1978 creation was rewritten for a West German audience, and after its success on the stage, the play was enacted by the same cast for this movie version by Peter Stein. The setting has been changed from South London to its West Berlin counterpart, Kreuzberg, the characters' names are changed to fit the German language, and the issues at hand are also contemporary problems in West Berlin. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide