"Die Entdeckung der Currywurst" is a German movie from 2008. This is the second and most recent effort as writer and director by filmmaker Ulla Wagner and honestly, the way things turned out here this may be a really good thing that she has not made a new film in almost a decade, at least not as the person in charge. Of course, a lot of the problems here also come from lead actress Baabara Sukowa, but we will get to that later. This 105-minute film is actually based on the work of Uwe Timm and if you take a look at other stuff he did, you will find a handful more somewhat known movies, like the ones about Rudi Rüssel, Bubi Scholz or Hotel Lux. Anyway, the title of this one we have here sounds actually pretty light and the poster you see here on IMDb could lead to the same conclusion. But there is nothing too light about this one. It is about World War II and actually the final years as Germany is obviously losing it in here. Now about lead actress Barbara Sukowa. I personally see nothing in her that could remotely be described as talent I must say. In my opinion, she plays the same role in absolutely every movie she is in and this is also the reason why most of these films really suck. She is constantly giving pseudo-important portrayals along the lines of the equally untalented Dr. Maria Furtwängler where she is in the center of all the action and makes sure every minute of the film that it is all about her. The perfect example would be the scenes she has near the end with Frederick Lau, an actually talented relatively young actor who is entirely wasted sitting on the same table with Sukowa, but never really saying a word. Now lets take a look at more cringeworthy stuff. First of all the story: We have a woman close to her 60s, but of course she is super-attractive for her age and in order for us to remember they include a man in his 20s who falls in love with her. Oh yeah, she is of course also the perfect woman. She provokes the Nazis, gets along well with the Americans near the end, hides a deserted soldier (the one she sleeps with). Who cares if she has a husband and even if he may be dead she really must have loved him if she has sex with some random German soldier so quickly. What a likable character! Oh yeah, of course her approach to life and the fact that she is a pretty skilled manual worked also make sure that she is in the center of attention every single scene. Don't you love it how she shoves herself in front of everybody else all the time. The napkin scene at the very end is where the film hits rock bottom (again) if that is even possible after over 90 minutes of this abomination. Before that the weakest moment was probably the "I am not a mare" scene. It sounds harmless, but you will know what I mean when you see it. There were more than just a few moments where I just couldn't eat as much as I wanted to vomit watching this movie. Oh yeah and the title makes almost no sense either as the scene with the actual invention of the curried sausage lasts for 3 minutes perhaps and was just rushed in for the sake of it I guess, so they could name it like that. Maybe this is also the case in the book, no idea as I have not read it. But it can impossibly be worse than this film we have here. One of the worst German films from the 21st century for sure, gives Hannah Arendt (yep Sukowa again) a real run for its money. Stay far far away.
