Marian Czura Movies

Using two parallel stories, this drama explores the reconstruction of Germany after the Second World war. To what extend did the lessons of the war sink in? In the story, an idealistic cameraman and his more worldly friend, a movie director, have hidden their old equipment until it is safe to use it again. Finally, the war is over, and movies are being made again. The director is willing to make popular entertainments, but his friend the cameraman has a yen to make something more socially relevant, commenting on the evils of the Hitler regime. Curiously, though they come to a parting of the ways, it comes over a woman they have both falling in love with, rather than these weighty issues. In the parallel story, a former soldier in the Reich's armies has been discharged and has returned to his home town and his old job as projectionist at the local movie theater. He and the others experience some difficulty with the occupying forces, especially with the dark-skinned Moroccans, but as soon as they can, they settle down into their old lives - including their prewar prejudices. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This satire on the making of a socially-conscious film by one of the New German Cinema directors pokes fun at the genre itself, and by eschewing a storyline and just presenting a series of anecdotal occurrences, the film also mimics (and mocks) the structure of many NGC efforts. But viewers who are not intimately familiar with the German film scene in the 1970s and early 1980s may find that the humor is whizzing right past them. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi