Jadup und Boel was very consciously modeled on other European art films, including Andrzej Wajda's MAN OF MARBLE with its Citizen-Kane-inspired flashback investigative structure. The dreamlike quality of its flashbacks is also often typical of Bergman. To castigate Simon for "glacially slow tempo" is asking this film to be something it isn't trying to be: namely a Hollywood mainstream picture. Antonioni's L'AVVENTURA also doesn't solve its main mystery, nor does BLOW-UP, nor do many other art-house films: this is deliberate in them as it is in Simon. This film is one of the most poetic and understated films ever made in East Germany, and repays careful re-watching. Simon imparted mythological qualities to the film that aren't in the original novel (which I have read), such as the film's beginning in dark depths and ending on the illuminated heights of a church tower, symbolizing the main character's progress toward self-knowledge. The main actor, Kurt Boewe, was called "The Columbo of the East;" watch it and you'll see why: he's winningly earthy as Peter Falk. Boel's mother was played by a famous actress who was Bertolt Brecht's last mistress; the great Polish actor Frantiszek Pieczka is also in this film. Be patient and your viewing will pay off.
2 Reviews
Nothing happens in the East German provinces, and hasn't since 1945
hakof23 September 2009
Warning: Spoilers
The setting is a small town in rural East Germany in the 1970s. It is the dead of winter. A stranger arrives in town. His is dressed like an absurd parody of Inspector Clouseau, speaks in off-putting enigmatic sentences, intrudes in people's business, and doesn't state his true purpose until rather late in the film. (He's an antiques dealer from Berlin,) But his name is "Gwissen," which would literally translate as "Cnscience," and he acts as a sort of catalyst in the tradition of an old-time morality play.
As Gwissen is walking down the street, an old house collapses out the blue. (Oblique criticism of the regime for not taking care of old buildings while building new ones?) For no discernible reason, he wanders into the rubble and reemerges with a book. The dedication reads, "From Jadup to Boel." Who are Jadup and Boel? The viewer finds out in a series of disjointed, (literally) hazy flashback scenes.
In 1945, Boel Marin was an illiterate, simple-minded, teenage refugee girl who arrived in town with her mother. It is never explained why or where they are from, despite their thick Slavic accents. Jadup was a pro-communist teenager who lived secluded in the town's church tower. They vaguely become friends. At some point, Boel is raped, refuses to say who did it, and disappears forever from town, even though her mother stays on. There are rumors that a Soviet soldier did it, though the crime is never solved.
30+ years later, the discovery of the book reawakens the townspeople's memories since it seems that nothing else has happened in this town. Jadup is now the mayor, and suddenly rumors are circulating that he raped the girl and made her disappear. Throughout the film, Jadup makes half-hearted attempts to find Boel to ask her, once more, what really happened. That's basically it. There is no resolution. There is no progression of the plot. The viewer sees various incidents in the town's daily life (incl. a meeting of the high school history club, the opening of a supermarket, a youth initiation ceremony), many of which simply end up oddly thanks to Jadup's incoherence and growing obsession with the past.
This movie was extremely disappointing. The pacing is glacially slow. The screenplay is horrendous, the cinematography is not very good, and the flashback scenes are almost amateurish. The character Gwissen is beyond strange. Other main characters in the movie include the mayor's put-out and embarrassed wife Barbara; their son Max, who just wants to be a teen; the town beauty teenage Eva, who is a nitwit; Willi Unger, a friend of the mayor and a buffoon who is publicly obsessed about writing the history of the town but doesn't know what to say; and Edith Unger, Max's classmate who is, frankly, creepy, and is a sort of "tween" Cassandra with all the social graces of "Carrie." This movie is famous because it was banned by the GDR authorities, probably because of the allegation of Soviet rape of Germans and because the film's low-level communist officials don't take popular democracy seriously. But I don't think that East Germans were missing much by not watching this movie.
As Gwissen is walking down the street, an old house collapses out the blue. (Oblique criticism of the regime for not taking care of old buildings while building new ones?) For no discernible reason, he wanders into the rubble and reemerges with a book. The dedication reads, "From Jadup to Boel." Who are Jadup and Boel? The viewer finds out in a series of disjointed, (literally) hazy flashback scenes.
In 1945, Boel Marin was an illiterate, simple-minded, teenage refugee girl who arrived in town with her mother. It is never explained why or where they are from, despite their thick Slavic accents. Jadup was a pro-communist teenager who lived secluded in the town's church tower. They vaguely become friends. At some point, Boel is raped, refuses to say who did it, and disappears forever from town, even though her mother stays on. There are rumors that a Soviet soldier did it, though the crime is never solved.
30+ years later, the discovery of the book reawakens the townspeople's memories since it seems that nothing else has happened in this town. Jadup is now the mayor, and suddenly rumors are circulating that he raped the girl and made her disappear. Throughout the film, Jadup makes half-hearted attempts to find Boel to ask her, once more, what really happened. That's basically it. There is no resolution. There is no progression of the plot. The viewer sees various incidents in the town's daily life (incl. a meeting of the high school history club, the opening of a supermarket, a youth initiation ceremony), many of which simply end up oddly thanks to Jadup's incoherence and growing obsession with the past.
This movie was extremely disappointing. The pacing is glacially slow. The screenplay is horrendous, the cinematography is not very good, and the flashback scenes are almost amateurish. The character Gwissen is beyond strange. Other main characters in the movie include the mayor's put-out and embarrassed wife Barbara; their son Max, who just wants to be a teen; the town beauty teenage Eva, who is a nitwit; Willi Unger, a friend of the mayor and a buffoon who is publicly obsessed about writing the history of the town but doesn't know what to say; and Edith Unger, Max's classmate who is, frankly, creepy, and is a sort of "tween" Cassandra with all the social graces of "Carrie." This movie is famous because it was banned by the GDR authorities, probably because of the allegation of Soviet rape of Germans and because the film's low-level communist officials don't take popular democracy seriously. But I don't think that East Germans were missing much by not watching this movie.
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