Carbide and Sorrel

Karbid und Sauerampfer
Directed by Frank Beyer
Produced by Martin Sonnabend
Written by Frank Beyer , Hans Oliva
Starring Erwin Geschonneck
Music by Joachim Werzlau
Cinematography Günter Marczinkowsky
Editing by Hildegard Conrad
Studio DEFA
Release date(s) 27 December 1963
Running time 85 minutes
Country East Germany
Language German

Carbide and Sorrel (German: Karbid und Sauerampfer) is a 1963 East German film directed by Frank Beyer and starring Erwin Geschonneck.

Contents

Plot

At 1945, in the devastated city of Dresden, Karl 'Kalle' Blücher - a former worker in the cigarettes factory - returns home, wishing to resume his job. The chief of the reconstruction team explains that the plant cannot produce cigarettes without carbide. He assigns Kalle with the mission to obtain the material. The worker travels to Wittenberge and manages to secure nine barrels, but his return to Dresden turns into a long chain of comical incidents: at first, a war widow named Karla allows him to travel on her wagon. Afterwards, he encounters greedy American soldiers, Red Army troops who confiscate some of his barrels and other obstacles. Eventually, after many adventures, he brings two barrels back and marries Karla.

Cast

Production

Frank Beyer recounted that the script was authorized without unusual problems. But after the filming ended, the representatives of the East German Ministry of Culture were worried that the portrayal of Red Army soldiers as comical plunderers would offend the Soviet Union. The deputy Minister then took a copy of the film to Moscow and arranged a screening for a local audience. The attendants broke into a loud laughter during the viewing, and it was approved for mass screening.[1]

Actor Erwin Geschonneck told that "In Carbide and Sorrel we did not ignore the hardships of the time. We did not turn the people who rebuilt the country into a joke... We knew that, in spite of all the challenges back then, the people also had funny experiences and knew to laugh about them."[2]

Reception

The film was well received.[3] Author Joshua Feinstein noted that "the picture spared no one, including the Red Army, in its satire. The work also subtly undermined the official accounts of the GDR's history."[4] Seán Allan and John Sandford wrote that "it took a deceptively light-hearted look at the division of Germany" and was a "milestone in DEFA's history."[5] Catherine Fowler concluded that it was one of the "most prominent" examples of "DEFA comedies... relaxed enough to laugh at their own Germanness."[6]

Frank Beyer's codename in the Stasi files, Karbid, was inspired by the film's title.[7]

References

  1. ^ Ingrid Poss. Spur der Filme: Zeitzeugen über die DEFA. ISBN 978-3861534013. Pages 186-7.
  2. ^ Dagmar Schittly. Zwischen Regie und Regime. Die Filmpolitik der SED im Spiegel der DEFA-Produktionen. ISBN 978-3861532620. Page 123.
  3. ^ Margaret McCarthy. Light motives: German popular film in perspective. ISBN 978-0814330449. Page 236.
  4. ^ Joshua Feinstein. The Triumph of the Ordinary: Depictions of Daily Life in the East German Cinema, 1949-1989. ISBN 978-0807853856. Page 178.
  5. ^ Seán Allan, John Sandford. DEFA: East German cinema, 1946-1992. ISBN 978-1571817532. Page 11.
  6. ^ Catherine Fowler. The European cinema reader. ISBN 978-0415240925. Page 155.
  7. ^ Daniela Berghahn. Hollywood behind the Wall: the cinema of East Germany. ISBN 978-0719061721. Page 28.

External links

Films directed by Frank Beyer
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
  • Der Verdacht (1991)
Television films