Television - The Boandlkramer and the eternal love
In Bavaria, the way leads to heaven over the mountains - at least in the comedy "The Boandlkramer and the Eternal Love". The last film of the 2020 deceased filmmaker Joseph Vilsmaier is entertaining and tinged with quiet melancholy.
Michael Bully Herbig plays the personified Death, who falls in love with a woman on Earth, played by Hannah Herzsprung. Hape Kerkeling appears as the Devil, Sebastian Bezzel and Götz Otto are also there. The comedy airs on a Wednesday at 8:15 pm on the First.
"The Boandlkramer and the Eternal Love" is one of Vilsmaier's most beautiful films ("Comedian Harmonists"), a farewell gift to his audience. In the previous film "The Story of Brandner Kaspar", a poacher tried to add more years to his life with cunning and craftiness. This time, the Boandlkramer himself is at odds with the fact that he sends people to heaven or hell as his boss - God personally.
The attempt to cross a divine plan
For when he is supposed to fetch the little Maxl, he falls in love with Gefi, the boy's mother. From then on, he tries everything to thwart the divine plan and win Gefi's heart. To come to Earth in human form, he even makes a pact with the Devil.
In real life, heaven is in the Lower Bavarian monastery Metten - a place of baroque splendor with a rich monastery library, church, and a Rokoko ballroom, where Rick Kavanian keeps watch as the gatekeeper of heaven. A place where the important ones all speak Bavarian. And where God as the supreme boss can also be in a bad mood and angry when the accounting of the living and the dead gets mixed up.
Quite different is hell. In the blindingly white ambiance, Nadja Auermann keeps watch as the Devil's daughter. Hell itself is a mirror hall, a show palace, and the Devil is a singing, dancing entertainer. Kerkeling plays him as a seducer and flatterer, with a velvety voice, he senses the business of his life when he offers the Death the eternal, earthly life.
"It really flutters"
Herbig's script, Marcus H. Rosenmüller and Ulrich Limmer's script is witty and charming and offers wonderful dialogues and scenes. For example, when the Boandlkramer ponders over his wildly pounding heart at the sight of Gefi. "It really flutters, as if there were swarms of flies in there."
Or when he keeps Gumberger (Bezzel) from cleaning the church in heaven and asks him to teach him the art of seduction: "Whoever makes a woman laugh has won her heart", Gumberger advises. But the wit of Death is almost touching in its clumsiness, and so the Boandlkramer disappointedly realizes: "Lordships, dealing with love is complicated!"
There is a lot to laugh about in this film. At the same time, there is also a lot of melancholy in it, perhaps also because Sepp Vilsmaier was already seriously ill during the shoot and knew that he would soon die. A secret known to only a few.
Near and yet so distant
This melancholy becomes apparent, for example, when the Boandlkramer stands enchanted beside Gefi and admires her, while she doesn't even notice him, because he is only visible to people in the hour of their death. A loving glance from the outside - like that of a dying person, who contemplates the life around him, which will continue without him soon. Near and yet so distant.
It sounds touching, but it's only a piece of it. Vilsmaier stages these moments intimately and movingly, but avoids any sentimentalism and lightens the mood again not long afterwards.
- Fans of comedy in Germany will have the opportunity to watch "The Boandlkramer and the Eternal Love," directed by the late Joseph Vilsmaier, on television this Wednesday at 8:15 pm.
- The film, which is filled with both humor and melancholy, features Michael Bully Herbig as the personified Death who falls in love with a woman on Earth, played by Hannah Herzsprung.
- In "The Boandlkramer and the Eternal Love," Herbig's character attempts to thwart the divine plan and win the heart of Gefi, the mother of a little boy he is supposed to bring to heaven.
- The film was shot in Bavaria, with the Lower Bavarian monastery Metten serving as the heavenly setting, and Nadja Auermann appearing as the Devil's daughter in hell.
- Hape Kerkeling delivers a captivating performance as the Devil, offering the Death character an eternal, earthly life in an attempt to seduce him.
- The witty and charming script by Michael Bully Herbig, Marcus H. Rosenmüller, and Ulrich Limmer includes memorable lines and scenes, such as when the Death character ponders his wildly pounding heart at the sight of Gefi.
- To the surprise of the Boandlkramer, the art of seduction is not as simple as he thought, and he struggles to win Gefi's affections, even making a pact with the Devil to come to Earth as a human.
- "The Boandlkramer and the Eternal Love" is a fitting farewell gift from Vilsmaier to his audience, who may appreciate the delicate balance of comedy and melancholy that runs throughout the film.
- Despite the film's darker themes, viewers can also look forward to the humorous antics of well-known German actors such as Götz Otto, Sebastian Bezzel, and "Bully" Herbig himself.
