User Reviews

Comedies are not really my thing, so why spend time on "Unser bester Mann"? Well, it is produced in 1983, only six years before the collapse of the Leninist state. I wondered if the film would contain early signs of the dawning failure, after decades of Leninist rule. To make a long story short, it doesn't. Here's the plot. The main character Otto, the "best man", is a copy of the illustrious Mister Bean. He takes on an apprenticeship as a building-worker, which makes him a member of a building brigade. You don't understand? Let me explain. The Leninist economy tried to foster cooperation between the workers by dividing the work-force into collectives or brigades. The salary premiums and bonuses were attributed to the collective, and not to the individual worker. The underlying idea is that this will stimulate the workers to support and encourage each other. Thus the competition and the envy are transposed from individuals to groups, which is less painful. It is a people's wisdom: a sorrow shared is a sorrow halved. Anyway, at first the brigade mistakenly believes that Otto is highly talented. They soon experience his clumsiness, which of course gives rise to many funny situations. At the same time Otto tries to start a love affair, which he handles even clumsier. Never the less Otto makes progress with the lady in question, a single mother, who apparently doesn't mind. Actually he wanted her sister, but a retired Leninist party member changes his mind. This gives him the courage to persevere in his work, albeit with the helping hand of the obligatory retired party member. And behold, in the end Otto invents a new method of building, which saves the brigade many hours of work. It is the typical Leninist mantra: believe in your fellow-man (if he is proletarian), and with some guidance eventually it will pay back. It is a thought which unfortunately is not completely true, but still succeeds in moving me. It is the American dream in reverse: you can succeed, even after you have given up trying. The political problem is whether the state should give POSITIVE incentives to its citizens. On the psychological level it is all about acceptance. There may be more, but I have not seen it. The recordings were made in Berlin, and it is nice to see the famous places. There is even a glimpse of the enormous Republican Palace, which after the fall of the regime was demolished without reason. Can buildings be subversive? By the way, you should know that in a final effort to gain the approval of the East-German people, the government had started an enormous housing program. In Berlin the shortage was done away with, so that the film is actually enacted in a scenery of success. Anyway, perhaps the film delayed the collapse of the system, but it did not prevent it. For the time being, I qualify "Unser bester Mann" as a nice try, but requiring improvements.

"Unser bester Mann", which means "Our finest man" is an East German movie from 1983, so this one is over 25 years old now already and maybe the point you read this review already over 30. It was made by Peter Palm and Eberhard Schäfer with the former being the man most in charge of the story and the latter being the director and also a co-writer. The lead actor is Heinz Rennhack, who was probably not entirely unknown in the GDR if he was cast for lead roles and he is in almost every scene in this film we have here. He also kept acting after the Fall of the Berlin Wall I saw. Many actors back then did not manage a successful transition, but he at least was cast for smaller roles. Today he is in his early 80s and back then he was in his mid-40s when this film came out a little over 5 years before these historic events. Unlike the other reviewer I don't think there were too many political messages (hidden or obvious) in this movie or I just did not see them. Of course, it is not entirely free from these, but as a whole it felt more like a pointless goofball comedy to me. We have a man, who is a bit of a bureaucrat and mostly works at construction sites, but not physically or so. Instead he makes sure the work is accurate and everything goes in hand with all the rules and regulations. This is the situation at the beginning of the film where we have the character sit in a truck and he is driven by somebody else to his target destination. I must say I was a bit surprised the other guy (a real truck driver the way you imagine him, also how he talks about girls and that quote about how the sky opens up and so do the women''s blouses was somewhat hilarious) recognized Vegesack. Also the name is somewhat comedic. By the way, pay attention to how at the very beginning of the film you can read words on the screen that say this film is "heiter", which means "light" and that is something really unusual, like you would never read in a film early on that it is a comedy or another genre these days. Only at the GDR. But it is not supposed to be a negative criticism, just something that stayed in the mind for me.

Anyway, back to the story. As the film goes on, a meeting with a dark-haired woman has major impact on the central character and he keeps looking for her. But while searching, he actually finds another woman he ends up liking and this changes his entire life because from that moment on he is really much less of a pedant and we see some actual character transformation as love (if we can call it that already) does something to him, so he opens up more and more. If only there wasn't the woman's mother, who just can't seem to warm up to the new guy in her mother's life. Seems like quite a challenge, but eventually there is a happy ending of course. Anyway, as for the comedy here I already talked about a bit, sadly I must say that it did not entertain me too well. Or at least not frequently enough for a film that runs for almost 1.5 hours. When the man asks the girl for a picture of her aunt because he suspects her to be the woman he is looking for, the girl shows him a photo on which she was still a girl. Okay, that seems not unrealistic, but also not too funny or at least not as funny as they wanted it to be. However, it is okay because the film does not shove the comedy into our faces constantly. It is a bit subtle most of the time (when the guy is not jumping and screaming from joy, that is) and that I liked, even if it is unfortunately not really hilarious most of the time. It still seems as sterile and stiff as I would have expected it from a GDR comedy. However, it must also be said that it is not a failure because I felt as if I was watching actual people here. The actors did an okay job, the script isn't bad either by any means. It's just that nothing really stands out and "okay" simply is not enough anymore to make a film just slightly memorable. So all in all, I give this one a cautious thumbs-up. No need to really catch it on the rare occasion like today when they still once again show it on television. The only genre that really convinced me from the GDR are kids-oriented (fairytale) movies that are usually from way before the 1980s.. These may be the ones you should be going for.