This is a question that people in the 1950s asked themselves just like we are wondering what the second half of the 21st century will look like. "1. April 2000" or "April 1, 2000" is an Austrian German-language film from 1952, so this one is already almost 65 years old. It is among the most known works by director Liebeneiner and the same applies to the writers Brunngraber and Marboe, but also in their case because they were not really that prolific. This is a black-and-white film and runs for 100 minutes approximately. One reason why this film has not totally vanished into oblivion is because the cast includes a whole lot of somewhat famous names such as Krahl, Jürgens, Meinrad, Hörbiger and Moser. But the main reason i think is because of how different it is. Science fiction is even today not very frequent in German(-language) film, but back then it was almost non-existent. And this one here is as sci-fi as it gets. There are sub-genres, such as war, comedy or maybe even romance, but none of these are as present as science fiction. And it is a very Austrian film as it depicts a fictitious version of what 1950s people thought what Austrian in the year 2000 would look like? Well.. I doubt it. This is more of a comedic take and it is a very absurd film from start to finish. The UFOs early on say it all. Unfortunately I must say that I did not enjoy the watch here for the most part. To me, it dragged on several occasions and I also felt there were too many characters in here that lacked elaboration who they were and what they did and, most of all, why they were in this movie, for examples all the statesmen appearing early. Many characters were just there without adding anything to the film and I found it disappointing. I would only recommend this film to Austrians who really love black-and-white films. Everybody else can skip it and they will not be missing much.
Review of 1. April 2000
