Sunday 31 January 2021

Wie Feuer und Flamme (5 Stars)



This is a film which very few of you will get a chance to see. It's a German film, made in 2001, which has never been available in English. What makes it worse is that the German DVD is now out of print. It can be rented for 3.99 Euros on Amazon Prime in Germany, but the stupid licensing laws – I prefer to call it censorship – dictate that you have to be in Germany to watch it. I don't know whether to call that idiotic or immoral. It's a mixture of the two.

It's a weepy romantic film with some great music. The film takes place in 1982. 17-year-old Penelope Kaufmann lives in West Berlin. She visits East Berlin for her grandmother's funeral. Close to the cemetery she hears music, so she goes to investigate. A punk rock band is performing in an abandoned fairground. She meets and falls in love with the singer, Andreas Hausler, who prefers to call himself Captain. All of the band members use pseudonyms, such as Hacki, Meise, Bax and Kopfi.


Can a love affair succeed between a couple who live on opposite sides of the Berlin Wall? That's a rhetorical question. Of course it can't. Andreas tells her from the start that they have no future, but Penelope is naive and thinks everything will work out fine. Adding to the problems, the German secret service (the Stasi) is already observing Andreas, because they consider his music subversive and anti-socialist.


On her third visit to East Berlin, Penelope is arrested, and she's banned from entering East Germany ever again. Andreas is given a 19 year prison sentence.

I wish my friends could see this film. It's beautiful and sad at the same time. I've read reviews from critics who say that the film would be better if it just showed East German punks and didn't have a love story. That's silly. That would be like James Cameron making "Titanic" without Jack and Rose. No heart.


On another subject: I found an old decanter in the cellar which used to belong to my father-in-law. Today was the first time I used it. I poured half a bottle of Eberbach-Schäfer Samtrot into the decanter before the film started. An hour later I poured the wine into a glass, while the film was still running. The improvement in the taste, compared to a few days ago when I drank straight from the bottle, was amazing. This is the only way to drink red wine.

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