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Helmut Krapp Movies

1986  
 
A tough black comedy that reaches into the absurd to bring its message across, this effort by director Josef Roedl is a true original. Jacob (Sigi Zimmerschied) comes from a small village in Bavaria that has disappeared, eaten up by a sprawling U.S. military base. When he gets a job with a greedy capitalist known only as the Boss (Peter Kern) he does not know it is a ruse; his new employer wants Jacob's aunt's house and land. The Boss hires Janis (Sunnyi Melles) to seduce Jacob into a trap that would force him to hand over his aunt's property (his aunt is in a mental institution and legally incapacitated). When he catches on to these plots, Jacob puts on Army fatigues and goes to live in an abandoned barn in his old village, which just happens to be smack dab on the military base's firing range. To Jacob, he is now in the U.S. and can launch attacks against the Boss. From this point onward, other characters come in and out of his barn, including Janis, who must decide whether or not she can take the dive bombers and artillery fire in order to stay with Jacob. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

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Starring:
Sigi ZimmerschiedSunnyi Melles, (more)
 
1979  
 
The intertwined lives of people of both Polish and German extraction who live on the pre-World War II border between the two countries are explored in this drama. Valeska is the Polish/German matriarch of a family living on the German side of the border. Her son is involved with the Hitler youth, but nonetheless keeps secret the presence on family land of a Jew who is hiding from the authorities. When the son inadvertently kills a soldier to prevent his sister from being raped, he runs away after borrowing money from the Jewish man. When soldiers come to the family's door looking for the missing soldier who had been billeted there, the Jewish man commits suicide. In another episode, one of the family's daughters marries a German soldier in a ceremony presided over by a Polish priest. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

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Starring:
Maria SchellErland Josephson, (more)