Kurt Früh's last-but-one film portrays the life of the Bernese hairdresser and city-original Karl Tellenbach (1877-1931) alias Dällebach Kari, played in an Oscar-ripe performance by Walo Lüönd. (It is an unwritten law that Swiss actors hardly or never get Oscars. Moreover, it is true that the Swiss Academy Awards are practically unknown outside of Switzerland).
Although "Dällebach Kari" belongs to Früh's social dramas, this movie is remarkably different from his movies from the 50ies and 60ies, like "Hinter den Sieben Gleisen" or "Es Dach überem Chopf": It concentrates not on a family, but on one single person whose role in life it was to make people laugh about his jokes before they were laughing at him. Dällebach was born with a so-called hair-lip and was thus the target of derision and scorn both from his customers and from his colleagues. So, he made a clown out of himself in order to cheat himself making himself believe that people laugh about his jokes rather than about his handicap. However, as a colleague of mine once said: Nobody can stay through his whole life on the shadow-side of the street. This is the topic of the famous score of this movie, written, composed and sung by Mani Matter (1936-1972) who has about the same value in Swiss life like Johnny Cash has in the US. Mani Matter tells in his song that Dällebach Kari told his jokes so long until he could not invent new ones anymore - and then rather ended his life instead of setting himself out to the big laughter. The tears came with the clowns, so the title of a famous German novel by Johannes Mario Simmel.
Some people have speculated that this movies has highly autobiographical character of the director Kurt Früh: two drinkers, two highly talented artists, both hardly recognized during life-time. Dällebach Kari, after having diagnosed with cancer in his 54th year, jumped from the Kornhaus-bridge in the river Aare, he was found only 10 days later in the remote Wohlensee. A friend of his commented: Kari and drinking water for 10 days - hard to believe! Thanks to Früh's film and the accompanying book by Hanruedi Lerch, here did someone survive exactly because he did not participate in society, he was not one of the useful and thus (ab-)usable members of society, but somebody who was consistently being himself. Although "Dällebach Kari" is from beginning to the end a very sad and depressing movie, it was a huge success when it came into the cinemas in 1970.
Although "Dällebach Kari" belongs to Früh's social dramas, this movie is remarkably different from his movies from the 50ies and 60ies, like "Hinter den Sieben Gleisen" or "Es Dach überem Chopf": It concentrates not on a family, but on one single person whose role in life it was to make people laugh about his jokes before they were laughing at him. Dällebach was born with a so-called hair-lip and was thus the target of derision and scorn both from his customers and from his colleagues. So, he made a clown out of himself in order to cheat himself making himself believe that people laugh about his jokes rather than about his handicap. However, as a colleague of mine once said: Nobody can stay through his whole life on the shadow-side of the street. This is the topic of the famous score of this movie, written, composed and sung by Mani Matter (1936-1972) who has about the same value in Swiss life like Johnny Cash has in the US. Mani Matter tells in his song that Dällebach Kari told his jokes so long until he could not invent new ones anymore - and then rather ended his life instead of setting himself out to the big laughter. The tears came with the clowns, so the title of a famous German novel by Johannes Mario Simmel.
Some people have speculated that this movies has highly autobiographical character of the director Kurt Früh: two drinkers, two highly talented artists, both hardly recognized during life-time. Dällebach Kari, after having diagnosed with cancer in his 54th year, jumped from the Kornhaus-bridge in the river Aare, he was found only 10 days later in the remote Wohlensee. A friend of his commented: Kari and drinking water for 10 days - hard to believe! Thanks to Früh's film and the accompanying book by Hanruedi Lerch, here did someone survive exactly because he did not participate in society, he was not one of the useful and thus (ab-)usable members of society, but somebody who was consistently being himself. Although "Dällebach Kari" is from beginning to the end a very sad and depressing movie, it was a huge success when it came into the cinemas in 1970.
