- Information:
- Title: (The Edukators. Originally, Die fetten Jahre Sind Vorbei)
- Certificate: (15: UK)
- Released by: (Pathé)
- Run Time: (125 minutes: UK: PAL)
- Origin: (Germany/Austria)
- Language: (German)
- Subtitles: (Hard encoded English)
- Vintage: (2004)
The Edukators is a Film I reviewed sum several months back, in fact it was the first film review I did for eMagi. Looking back on it I realise it was a terrible piece of garbage that should never have been let out of on the general public, But today I will undo the miscarriage of justice by giving the Edukators more properly known as ‘Die Fetten Jahre Sind Vorbei’ a proper review. The Film in its most basic form is about a trio of Idealistic activists who perform protest art to make their point, its protest art with a difference though.
Jan and Peter are activists who take things to a new level by breaking in the homes of people on a yacht club members list, once they are inside the houses they rearrange the furniture and ornaments to form Protesting art as a method of getting across their point. Once the job is done they leave a note like ‘Your days of plenty are numbered’ and leave without stealing anything (almost). This attempt to scare the owners and inform them that they have too much money is seen as a novel approach by newspapers.
Jule, who is Peter’s girlfriend is handed eviction papers from her landlord for paying the back rent too late; Peter tells Jule that she an live with him and Jan until see can get a handle on her debts and find a new place, an old style commune according to his thoughts on the matter. While Peter is away for a weekend in Barcelona Jan helps Jule prepare her apartment to be turned back over to the landlord, their relationship grows in this time and Jan eventually tells Jule of the Edukators. Jule takes Jan to the home of the man she owes 94,500 euros (ouch), Things happen and things go wrong that leave all three in a situation that puts a cloud over their futures.
The Film was directed and Written by Hans Weingartner with writing credits also going out to Katharina Held. Weingartner’s works include the psychological work ‘The white sound’ and the upcoming ‘Free Rainer’, I’m looking forward to free Rainer a lot and maybe should it ever be released on this fair island by way of the UK I’ll be buying it faster than an certain groups of people buy burgers. Held doesn’t seem to have main credits at all at IMDB, only the Edukators and the upcoming free Rainer.
The film stars Daniel Brühl, Julia Jentsch and Stipe Erceg as the Artistic Educational idealistic communist activists. Burghart Klaussner Lends himself to the film as well as the hippy turned capitalist kidnap victim Hardenberg. Daniel Brühl has previously stared in the cult classic film ‘goodbye! Lenin’ and Weingartner’s other epic ‘The white sound’, it was indeed the white sound that won Daniel Brühl an award for Best actor at the German Film critics association awards and a best young actor award at the Bavarian Film awards. Julia Jentsch can be seen in other films such as ‘Sophie Scholl: Die Letzten tage’, It is a film that won her the silver bear for best actress at the Berlin International film festival, Best actress at the European film awards, Best leading actress at the German Film awards and many more. The Edukators also won her a best young actress award at the Bavarian film awards. Stipe Erceg can be found in other films such as the student feature ‘kiki+tiger’ and the upcoming ‘Die Aufschneider’. Klaussner can be found in many films going back to 1983 so I’m not going to name them all but I will say that he had a small role in the cult film goodbye! Lenin alongside Daniel Brühl.
The Film itself has won many awards for it’s interesting concepts and beautiful cinematography, this includes the above listed young actress award for Julia Jentsch along with a Best actor nomination for Daniel Brühl at the European film awards and another Best actress award for Julia Jentsch at the German film critics association awards. However, by far the most prestigious of its nominations was the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film festival in 2004; personally I’m inclined to think that it would have been a better choice for the winner rather than the “mockumentary” Fahrenheit 9/11 that won that year. In fact let’s hope that these dreadful pieces of “Reality” raping garbage never come up again.
The Film itself is in two versions, the international version is the only one available to those living in these isles and it has a different ending. The different ending was an add-on that’s only available in the German language release of the film, It was a spur of the moment ending and wasn’t ready for Cannes and in the end the studio didn’t want to have to make the international distributors take the new ending when they already had the first version. The Alternate ending depicted the trio heading to the Island Jan talks about while in the mountains. This alternate ending can be found at you tube if one were to search for ‘Die Fetten Jahre Sind Vorbei’.
My person opinions of this film are obvious to some as it’s a film I’d recommend to anyone looking for a good political thriller than doesn’t involved suited monkeys thinking they know what’s best for the people. I think it is the likable nature of the characters that draws me in the most; I understand exactly what they are talking about and what they mean. Indeed some of their methods are unorthodox but isn’t that a good thing? The artistic Nature of their methods some to me a different kind of radical, a radical whose very concepts are kept within a socially acceptable mesh. The alternate ending shows the trio removing themselves from this mesh of social concepts by attempting to destroy European television (Implied action rather than shown), this illustrates a choosing of individual morality of the collective morality imposed by society.
It’s actually the Mountainous scenes which I enjoy the most as they give a beautiful feeling of tranquillity despite the fact that they’ve just kidnapped somebody, It’s also interesting to see Hardenberg consider his past as a hippy and in a way grow closer to the trio. But you always kind of feel that he’s too smart and in a way is faking Stockholm syndrome which is something that’s really left to the imagination as the alternate ending makes things all too complex when it comes to his motives and ideas.
I hear that this was one of the first German films to be shot totally using digital cameras which is an interesting thing and indeed I must admit that I liked the feel those digital cameras gave to the film, it is something no doubt you’ll notice if you have a keen eye. The direction is beautiful and in my opinion was a crying shame it didn’t win the palme d’Or for the direction alone. The camera movement is typical of any European film with a sense that you’re really there running beside the actors unlike the shallow Hollywood creations which seem all too fond of keeping the camera still which in my mind makes it far too removed for myself and too distant to feel connected to the characters.
I’ll let the readers into a secret; this is the second review I’ve written in six hours as my first attempt at creating this review was scuttled by MS word crashing 1 hour and 30 minutes into the exercise. Thank you so so much Microsoft! In any case, this review was designed to give a better idea of what the Edukators is really like and while writing this I’ve realised I wasn’t kind enough to this film the first time round so many months ago. The Edukators or Die Fetten Jahre Sind Vorbei gets a rating of 9/10.
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