"Silvesterpunsch" is an East German movie from 1960, so this one has its 60th anniversary in 2020 and this one was directed by the late Günter Reisch. It runs for 1.5 hours and is actually a sequel to "Maibowle" from one year earlier. Apparently the latter was successful enough for them to follow up. Okay I cannot say anything negative about the previous, but as for this one here I was really disappointed. I have seen many extremely unrealistic films from Germany (also way more recent ones) that have horrible overacting and a terrible script, but this one here does disappoint only partially from this perspective. Still the script is a big weakness. I have rarely seen such a bland film. So uninteresting like watching paint dry and the character all seem so boring. I mean maybe they got interesting introductions in the first film, but it should really not be the case that you have to watch one movie to appreciate another. Then again, I can't really imagine the first is a good watch. One problem here is also that there are so many chaacters in here and honestly not a single one has an interesting story or character development. Extremely bland. Then for the music and there is a lot. It feels out of nowhere sometimes, which is often the case for musicals because they simply sing instead of talk, but here this is not an excuse because those who sing actually have instruments, so it is really them being musicians and not being part of the core story necessarily. Apart from that the singing frequently isn't good at all and also in terms of lyrics it adds very little.
The film is linked to alcohol, which I am personally not too fond of for subjective reasons. But it is not a negative dealbreaker, still somehow they feel that this certain drink and the celebration linked to it is enough of a story and goal to reach at the end of the film with the addition of some even slightly chemical references. By the way if you take a look at the title here and also the title of the first film, they went for alcoholic drinks for special occasions, so maybe we can be glad that there is no thrid film called Adventsglühwein or so, although I am not really sure if this was a famous drink back then in the GDR one year before the Wall was built.
This second movie was definitely one too many already, oh well maybe the first was already. Also sometimes when the film was not too good, at least they had some attractive girls in old GDR films, but here nobody really won me over and made it easy for me to cheer for the romantic aspects of this film. Of course romance was a part of the movie too, but how can we be happy for characters who find each other if we have virtually no idea who they are and what they stand for. Also honestly the meeting out there at the playground was really nothing of quality how initially (she acts like) she wants nothing to do with him and then seconds later they kiss as if tehy hadn't seen each other for a year. Come on.. Cast-wise nobody is really famous. Christel Bodenstein, the only one with a photo here on imdb, I think I have heard the name and she is already alive right now still being in her early 80s, so she was really really young when this was made by DEFA back then. As for the crew, I mentioned Reisch already and he is also one of the several writers, actually really many, working on this film. Definitely a case of too many cooks spoiling the brother. Kinda shocking none of them saw how weak this one turned out to be, which makes me question their creativity entirely. Then again, maybe people liked it back then as a fairly harmless family movie, but it definitely hasn't aged well, especially if we take a look at all the shots the film takes at comedy. It just is never really funny at all. So the question for me here is not if I give the film a positive or negative recommendation, but if it is a horrible or weak film. Overall I must go for the former eventually because honestly there is nothing appealing to it at all except maybe that the cast seemed to have a fun time occasionally. I mean they're probably not good enough to act and in reality they hated it. But we the audience sure don't have a fun time. Not one bit. Watch something else instead, maybe an old GDR fairytale film. This is where the country actually delivered quality most of the time. By the way, this film is in color like most lighter GDR films, the dramas were black-and-white most of the time.
The film is linked to alcohol, which I am personally not too fond of for subjective reasons. But it is not a negative dealbreaker, still somehow they feel that this certain drink and the celebration linked to it is enough of a story and goal to reach at the end of the film with the addition of some even slightly chemical references. By the way if you take a look at the title here and also the title of the first film, they went for alcoholic drinks for special occasions, so maybe we can be glad that there is no thrid film called Adventsglühwein or so, although I am not really sure if this was a famous drink back then in the GDR one year before the Wall was built.
This second movie was definitely one too many already, oh well maybe the first was already. Also sometimes when the film was not too good, at least they had some attractive girls in old GDR films, but here nobody really won me over and made it easy for me to cheer for the romantic aspects of this film. Of course romance was a part of the movie too, but how can we be happy for characters who find each other if we have virtually no idea who they are and what they stand for. Also honestly the meeting out there at the playground was really nothing of quality how initially (she acts like) she wants nothing to do with him and then seconds later they kiss as if tehy hadn't seen each other for a year. Come on.. Cast-wise nobody is really famous. Christel Bodenstein, the only one with a photo here on imdb, I think I have heard the name and she is already alive right now still being in her early 80s, so she was really really young when this was made by DEFA back then. As for the crew, I mentioned Reisch already and he is also one of the several writers, actually really many, working on this film. Definitely a case of too many cooks spoiling the brother. Kinda shocking none of them saw how weak this one turned out to be, which makes me question their creativity entirely. Then again, maybe people liked it back then as a fairly harmless family movie, but it definitely hasn't aged well, especially if we take a look at all the shots the film takes at comedy. It just is never really funny at all. So the question for me here is not if I give the film a positive or negative recommendation, but if it is a horrible or weak film. Overall I must go for the former eventually because honestly there is nothing appealing to it at all except maybe that the cast seemed to have a fun time occasionally. I mean they're probably not good enough to act and in reality they hated it. But we the audience sure don't have a fun time. Not one bit. Watch something else instead, maybe an old GDR fairytale film. This is where the country actually delivered quality most of the time. By the way, this film is in color like most lighter GDR films, the dramas were black-and-white most of the time.
