"König Karl", which of course means King Karl (without the Lotto), is a German television film from 1986, so this one has its 35th anniversary this year and actually it is pretty much the exact same date today that this film aired on 3.5 decades ago. And this is not the only memorable anniversary linked to this project, but I shall get to that later. With the name of the movie here, i initially thought that this could be a period piece because I watched a film the other day from the same country with the same lead actor and this film was set centuries back in the past. But it is not. On the contrary, it was a really contemporary film for the mid1980s. By the way, the country I just mentioned is the GDR of course as this is an East German movie we have here. Saw several of these lately and quite a few ran for only 75 minutes, one even shorter, so this one here at pretty much exactly 1.5 hours is certainly among the longer films. At least if we look at duration standards back then because 75 minutes was nothing truly unusual for GDR films. It was for West German films back then and is for pretty much all films nowadays, no matter which country they are from. The director here is Günter Stahnke, who died a little over a year ago at the age of 90 and he was a really prolific filmmaker since launching his career back in the 1960s already Still, this movie here is from the later stages of his career, even if he wasn't even 60 already when he made this film and after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, he did not really keep making films. His 1996 movie, again with the same lead actor as here, was a bit of comeback, but it should stay the only film. The writer here was Peter Volksdorf and this was his first of only three credits. Definitely not a lot, but he worked with Helga Göring who see in this film as the closest to a female lead there as well and also with Helga Piur. The latter was Stahnke's wife, so it should not surprise anybody that Stahnke also directed the two other films written by Volksdorf. By the way, Volksdorf chose a pretty interesting way to name this production, which on the one hand sounds very GDR and on the other is also a little play on words including his name. "Volk" means "people" in German in the sense of the people of a country.
As for the cast here, one name stands above everybody once again and this is of course Herbert Köfer. He is the one and only lead actor in here and also plays the title character obviously. I have seen several Köfer films over the course of a few days and more will follow. The reason is that Köfer had his 100th birthday the other day. This is the other anniversary I was talking about early on. On the occasion of said birthday, the MDR are showing many films of his and that is a really rare occasion because many of them have not been on television for years. If not decades. You can see it from this one here as well because it did not even reach the five votes needed for an official imdb rating. So these films are not lost, but super difficult to find. This one here for example I also had no success with in finding it online. So I took the chance to watch it around midnight today. Already talked a bit about the cast and elaborated on connections including Göring and Piur. These two for example you also find in other projects starring Köfer. He was a pretty big name back in the GDR and I can see why after having seen his film here. I am not sure if he has a gigantic amount of range and versatility, but he definitely found his niche and delivered charisma and recognition value on many occasions. There is no denying that. He was in his mid60s here during that time when I was only one year old and not for long. Unfortunately, this film's age also means that several cast members are no longer with us anymore. This includes Göring for sure and also probably the other elderly actress whose they said on one occasion was in her 50s, which seemed a bit young. Maybe I misheard or maybe the actress really was and she just looked older. Two of the guys are also no longer with us and this also includes Arenkens, which makes me a bit sad because I liked his character and he was the one who maybe resembled me the most from everybody here. Would have been nice to see him on more occasions. Missing as well from the imdb cast list is not the one actress I just mentioned, but also the child actor who is considerably younger than everybody else. I guess he did not have a big career afterwards, but chose the path of a life away from the limelight. Not a bad decision. I think his line delivery was pretty weak at times and he was definitely not as cute as they wanted him to be. This also had to do with the writing though, just take the thing in his face at the very end. So weird.
The film overall wasn't bad, but the material was just too weak to win me over and it also had a few lengths. This is the story of a man who is basically the head of a group of tenants and he organizes a lot of stuff. His ways we find out early on also include rather strict language with the note he pinned on the door of the house to tell everybody they need to show up for a meeting. But his intentions are good nonetheless. The problem is just that he tries too much basically, especially when he starts playing Cupid and turn the tenants into couples basically. It is admittedly a bit much, even if these fellas apparently do need somebody to push them a bit. The result is also a bit of an escalation near the end when they say they are sick of him and basically "fire" him. This reminded me of the kind of pseudo drama we get with current films so often that everything seems lost 20 minutes before the end and then all is magically fixed again. This is here also the case for the most part. It does not feel too authentic, but I don't know, maybe it is realistic and back then there was just a very different sense of belonging and community. Not gonna lie, the scene in which they realized that they forgot a bit about Köfer's character and did not treat him too nicely was a bit touching. Also there were some pretty nice aspects. I mean anonymity is a big thing really and has been for a long time, especially in big cities, but it was nice to see how the people from the same house here met, talked to each other discussed stuff etc. even if there were arguments here and there as well. But it felt fine nonetheless. Or also how they went to the theater together on one occasions. Nobody was just doing their thing. In the end, they are also together again and basically find a good solution for everybody, even if it is not an entirely happy ending because Köfer's character will still move out. A bit surprising though, but his own somewhat romantic story also get a bit of a happy ending, even if it's nothing very obvious or definite. But the scene earlier how Göring's character was happy he would finally ask her to be with him stays memorable with how he asks something entirely different. I am not sure if it was good or not. Sometimes the film was certainly a bit on the clumsy side, just like its protagonist. One example would be when Köfer's character talks to a woman about how strong and handsome a male character is and as a consequence she decides to stay at home and do some thinking instead of joining the others for the theater visit.
A bit of a nice inclusion here is that at the very end they also celebrate Köfer's character's birthday because, as I said, the actor had it's 100th birthday two years ago. Now that is a real occasion. But this celebration, maybe without the king now, felt nice because it showed a sense of belonging and that they care about each other really and that actually, even if the protagonist's ways were not always ideal, still some people got together. These were surely different times because marriage was mmore of an issue back then, even if not really referenced here, but also because characters simply lifted others up (men lifting up women obviously) when they were far from a couple, but the affection was there and it went both directions. Okay, what else is there to say about this one. i think it was a movie that also would be fairly suitable, maybe in a slightly modernized form, to be turned into a theater piece these days in the 21st century. The attention to detail was not always great and here and there it did have some lengths and dragged a little, but the key idea here is not too shabby at all and with the element of isolation, they could also get in some solid message and not be only 100% abbout the comedy. Might not be too easy though to find an actor as solid as Köfer here to make it as entertaining. Anyway, I still doubt this will be made because the film simply is not remembered to many. I did not like it too much either here and there, but it should not be as forgotten as it really is.
I am still a bit glad it was on television once again today because I am sure that some older East German audiences watched it back then and even if most of them are very much asleep right now and probably missed it, maybe some stayed awake and it brought back some nice memories. For this reason alone it was worth showing it once again and I hope maybe it will be on here and here again for people to watch it. It is not worse than most of the other stuff shown on MDR and ARD's other smaller stations for sure, actually better even. Nonetheless, for me it is a negative recommendation overall, even if the film never hit failure territory. Köfer's comedic talent lifts it up here and there, but may favorite from those I have seen so far is still easily "Der Lumpenmann" I would say. This one here has aspects and moments that deserve to be seen and discussed I think. It's also nice that it elaborates on the element of unrequited love between two characters here and there, so it is not entirely feel-good, but these moments are also nothing too serious and in the end, you will remember this film for its lighter parts.
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