Die Mediocren

Using a slogan like ''a neo-romantic-fast food comedy'' makes you wonder if this film is anything other than an American low-budget film? The answer is yes. It is actually a German low-budget film called Die Mediocren.The scriptwriter and director is Matthias Glasner, a cinema fanatic since childhood, who in his early teens took part in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's filming of Berlin Alexanderplatz! Glasner is however hardly new a Fassbinder, nor for that matter a new Werner Herzog or Margaret von Trotta. He doesn't possess the same visionary vein as these, or perhaps he doesn't want to get stuck in the same ''typically'' German tradition. Robin, perhaps the most morally subversive of the four main characters in Die Mediocren, becomes furious every time any of the others comment upon how ''German'' his behaviour is. This perhaps suggests about what Glasner is trying subliminally to shut himself off from: the German heritage, not only its history but also its identity - what it means to be German at all. Robin and the other three youths in the film: Leo, Jost and Anna live in a town which used to be a part of West Germany. When one of them through a series of complications is suspected by the others of being an old ''ossie'', a possible liar and traitor from the old DDR. Problems of contemporary German identity, since the Second World War and since the fall of the wall, are exposed. To try to sort it out all four of them travel to the birthplace of the accused in the old DDR, a journey which ends in catastrophe. A catastrophe which really begins when Robin, after sleeping with Jost behind Leo's back, decides to end her relationship with Leo and go in search of new conquests, which is more or less all men are good for to her. Leo's answer is to concentrate all his efforts on Anna, a woman who has mostly been interested in the Guinness Book of Records until now. The problem continues with the age old phenomena of penis envy. An insensitive and provocative Robin tells Jost about Leo's incredible equipment in comparison with his own little willy. Die Mediocren is full of similar bagatelles of everyday insufficiency making life apparently hopeless. The film meritoriously shows the various substitutes used by the characters against this void. Things such as cybertechnique, answer machine messages and not least an obsession with sex, are what are left when old values are bankrupt. CCL

Premiärstatus
Nordisk premiär: Medverkande
Jürgen Vogel, Jasmin Tabatabei, Dani Levy: Producent
Bernd Medek: Manus
Matthias Glasner: Foto
Sonja Rom: Musik
Oliver Probst