Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei¶
603 words on German Films , German Media
In the past years there’s been a constant stream of German films which are tolerably good and about a film per year which even made it to (arts) cinemas internationally. This started around the time of Lola Rennt (Run, Lola, Run) and has continued since. Although, with Gegen die Wand, there’s already been a candidate for that this year, Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei (IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes) may be another one.
The story is quite simple and bit zeitgeisty. Three young people, Jan , Jule and Peter, aren’t too happy with the world we live in and the whole globalisation and capitalistic crap. But the go further than the little protest against sweatshop labour in sneaker outlets. The boys made up a little scheme where they break into the houses of rich people. On they’re in there, they rearrange the furniture and B&O tellys in absurd ways and leave one of two simple messages: Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei
(The ‘fat’ years are over) or Sie haben zuviel Geld.
(You’ve got too much money.)
Those messages are signed with Die Erziehungsberechtigten
, which is usually translated as legal guardians in English but is a much stranger word in German, referring literally to those who are entitled to educate you. I suppose that this led to the film’s strange English title The Edukators
, with a little teutonic ‘k’ in the middle.
The theory behind leaving those messages is that the rich people are used to being robbed but breaking into their homes and changing them without showing interest in the money will scare them. It’s not seen how effective this really is but it’s a sweet idea at least. As Jule gets involved, the careful planning goes and Jan and her break in the villa of a guy that Jule ows a lot of money because of a traffic accident, paying for which essentially ruins her life.
As if this weren’t silly enough, she forgets her phone at the place and they have to return to pick it up – incidentally at the same time that the home owner returns. In panic, they decide to kidnap him and take him to the countryside without an actual plan about what to do with him. The kidnapping is very relaxed and they learn that the rich guy did his share of revolution planning back in the 1960s which of course touches the issue how he changed so much since then and makes the young guys think about their future.
After a few days in the countryside and a crisis or another in the young people’s friendship, they decide to bring the businessman back home, for good. And that’s about it. While the kidnapping didn’t help their actual problem too much, they learned a lot about themselves at least and became better friends. They’ve got more plans to pursue.
All in all, the film is well done and based on a cool idea. With Hans Weingartner being the director and Daniel Brühl (known from Good Bye Lenin) as Jan – those two also made Das weiße Rauschen together.
I don’t think it’s an outstanding film, but it’s well worth watching. My two main critiques would be the following: At just over two hours the film is long. As there’s not a lot happening in the film, that’s definitely too much. Half an hour less would have been enough. Secondly, I found the filming irritating in places. It seems to be fashionable to cut off people’s heads in photos these days and you can witness that in the film a lot as well.
