"Alma schafft alle" is an East German television movie from 1980, so this one has its 40th anniversary this year, actually the exact date was in May. It runs for 80 minutes, so this is a fairly short film and after seeing it, I would say that luckily it is this short. It wasn't an inspiring watch whatsoever. But first things first: The director here is pretty prolific GDR filmmaker Konrad Petzold and this is one of his later career efforts. He did not manage a successful transition into filmmaking in united Germany after 1989 and did not make any more movies, but then again, perhaps he did not even want to because he was already 60 around that time. Wiith this film here, he was 50. One of the two writers working on the movie was Mannfred Petzold, so what we have here was a bit of a family affair apparently. I cannot really find out which connection they had exactly, but I doubt it is a coincidence. In any case, it seems as if they are not related to pretty famous German filmmaker (and one of the best right now in my oopinion) Christian Petzold. We talk(ed) about his films on another occasion though. This is not the time and place to do so. The title of this movie we have here already makes clear that the title character is Alma. And it sounds familiar in a playful manner that Alma causes trouble for everybody without being really harmful, a description you could also use to characterize Heinz Erhardt('s character) in his movies. However, it makes me feel unpleasant to compare this talented man to this movie and character we have here, although I want to make sure that I don't put the blame on Agnes Kraus. She just could not really do a lot with how the character was written and it's not her fault. By the way, this may be GDR, but it nis not a DEFA movie or at least not primarily. In one way or the other, they werfe always involved with GDR film productions. Okay, I already mentioned the name of the lead actress and if you take a closer look at her body of work, then you see that this is one of several films in which she plays the character of Alma. Four films or so. I am not entirely sure. But she is already married to her man this time and that was a story that was key in one of the previous films. I believe this is the final installment from the Alma films, which also explains the title in which she already sounds like a character that we know without having seen the movie. Probably many GDR citizens did in fact and if they considered watching this film, then they knew and liked the character already to an extent that they would not really see that this installment is not a good addition at all. At least one film too many and with how forgettable this one here actually was, I have a hard time believving that the one or two previous films were worth seein. Hopefully, they were not as bad as this one here. It has not aged well at all.
Now let's go a bit into detail about the outcome here. It is a mix of comedy and family with certain romance aspects. Characters are interested in each other, about to fall for each other, but not everybody is happy about that, so certain characters try to make sure that they get together with other characters, but always in a playful manner. There are no real antagonists and everybody is likable for one reason or another. However, it is all really messy and over the place. Too many characters and you have a hard time to understand what is actually going on, who is who etc. The consequence is that it felt virtually impossible to actually cheer for certain character. This is not a problem by definition, but it is if you feel that the filmmakers had in mind that the audience is involved to a mentionable degree. They came really short. This film aired today because yesterday it was Gojko Mitic's 80th birthday. So he was half as old back then as he is today and he is still not yet retired, which probably means he is at pretty good health. Or at least for his age. But his role here is not too big. The one other cast member that I always remember is Fred Delmare, who was so prolific back then. Also not one of the key characters though, even if he has more screen time than "Der kleine Jan". Now what an unusual credit listing. This is not the character's name, but indeed the actor's "name". He never appeared in another film before or afterwards though, so i wonder what happened to him. Clearly he pursued a career away from movies and that is alright. He must be 50 today approximately. As for lead actress Kraus, she was almost 70 when this film was made and she did look younger I think. I struggle a bit with calling her "lead actress" because she is not as much in the center of the film as the title suggests. I wonder if she is even the cast member with the most screen time. But it doesn't matter. I just felt while watching that somehow they may have elaborated so much on her character in the previous films that they simply ran out of material and put more focus on supporting characters this time. It did feel pretty clumsy though. None of the stories made an impact whatsoever and felt airly authentic and realistic. The moments when they desparately try to get in some emotion were no success either because they clearly felt a bit over the top. I would not include Kraus there, she still gace one of the better performances. But there was one scene / one quote from another character that stayed in the mind somehow for me and that was when they said to Alma that they had no use for her righht now in that specific situation. That almost fit the entire character if we extend this quote to this final sequel. Not sure if I am a bit too harsh here, but it was all so boring and uninspired and showed how hard The GDR was struggling with comedies at times with their entire sobering background. It was not a good film. The only question for me was if it is just a weak film or even a bad film. I have to go with the latter or in all, even if it is a close call, because it was literally never funny and even for a fairly short 80 minutes, that is an absolute no-go. Highly not recommended.
Now let's go a bit into detail about the outcome here. It is a mix of comedy and family with certain romance aspects. Characters are interested in each other, about to fall for each other, but not everybody is happy about that, so certain characters try to make sure that they get together with other characters, but always in a playful manner. There are no real antagonists and everybody is likable for one reason or another. However, it is all really messy and over the place. Too many characters and you have a hard time to understand what is actually going on, who is who etc. The consequence is that it felt virtually impossible to actually cheer for certain character. This is not a problem by definition, but it is if you feel that the filmmakers had in mind that the audience is involved to a mentionable degree. They came really short. This film aired today because yesterday it was Gojko Mitic's 80th birthday. So he was half as old back then as he is today and he is still not yet retired, which probably means he is at pretty good health. Or at least for his age. But his role here is not too big. The one other cast member that I always remember is Fred Delmare, who was so prolific back then. Also not one of the key characters though, even if he has more screen time than "Der kleine Jan". Now what an unusual credit listing. This is not the character's name, but indeed the actor's "name". He never appeared in another film before or afterwards though, so i wonder what happened to him. Clearly he pursued a career away from movies and that is alright. He must be 50 today approximately. As for lead actress Kraus, she was almost 70 when this film was made and she did look younger I think. I struggle a bit with calling her "lead actress" because she is not as much in the center of the film as the title suggests. I wonder if she is even the cast member with the most screen time. But it doesn't matter. I just felt while watching that somehow they may have elaborated so much on her character in the previous films that they simply ran out of material and put more focus on supporting characters this time. It did feel pretty clumsy though. None of the stories made an impact whatsoever and felt airly authentic and realistic. The moments when they desparately try to get in some emotion were no success either because they clearly felt a bit over the top. I would not include Kraus there, she still gace one of the better performances. But there was one scene / one quote from another character that stayed in the mind somehow for me and that was when they said to Alma that they had no use for her righht now in that specific situation. That almost fit the entire character if we extend this quote to this final sequel. Not sure if I am a bit too harsh here, but it was all so boring and uninspired and showed how hard The GDR was struggling with comedies at times with their entire sobering background. It was not a good film. The only question for me was if it is just a weak film or even a bad film. I have to go with the latter or in all, even if it is a close call, because it was literally never funny and even for a fairly short 80 minutes, that is an absolute no-go. Highly not recommended.
