"Das Gesellenstück" is a German television film from 1986, which means this came out when I was one and also means that it has its 35th anniversary this year in 2021. Of course, the Berlin Wall still stood at that point (even if not super strong), but this means it can be added for clarification purposes here that this is an East German film. It was also pretty easy seeing that for different reasons while watching, not just because of the set decoration, maybe not even really too much about that, but rather because of the comedy (style) and also because this film runs for 75 minutes only. This running time was nothing unusual in the GDR and definitely more common than in West Germany and also most other countries of the world. Have seen several other films from the GDR, some of them made by the same people or starring some of the same people, that also went for easily under 1.5 hours. This one here is of course in color, but that is pretty much a safe bet for the mid80s. I called this is a film several times, but I am not really sure how accurate of a description this really is because in fact this is the recording of a theater play (a Stück as it says in the title) with an audience around and it is not a film the way you imagine it traditionally. The good news is that because of this background this could easily be reenacted and brought back to the stage, but I think before that happens, they may need to alter certain parts because here and there it felt really dated, especially in terms of the humor. I must say the laughing at moments that felt not remotely funny was so exaggerated that I thought they maybe included an applause machine or something, but it seems it is really all the audience. Or maybe they made them sound louder, but this could also have to do with the audio in the room then because the moments the camera caught them, they really seemed genuinely enthusiastic. I would say that the approach to comedy reminded me a bit of this one Didi Hallervorden series he made also in the 1980s and that featured his wife and daughter as the regulars next to him. That was in West Germany obviously, but maybe the humor there during that era was not completely different compared to the one in the GDR at that point. And as for the question if this is really a movie, I guess it includes motion pictures, so you can say yes. I am not sure by the way where this was recorded.
The director is Eberhard Schäfer. He was highly prolific since launching his career in the late 1960s, but stopped pretty much when Germany was reunited. If that was because he simply chose retirement or if he struggled to find work, I am not sure about. I mean 22 years is not a long career, but I don't know when he started, so maybe he was older already. In any case, there should be much more known about his background, his whereabout and if he is still alive than there is. A bit of a pity to see he was basically forgotten and so have been most of his films. This one here barely manages to have the five ratings to create an imdb vote. Mine actually took it to five. However, I must also say that the quality here did not win my over, so I am not too eager to watch more from him soon. Saw another work the other day because he worked with Köfer there too, but I will get to that later. In any case, this film here is from a time that was pretty close to the end of his career already. The writers here are Krause and Petzold and this was not the only occasion for which the two collaborated. For both of them, it was, just like for the director, one of their later credits and the ends of their careers were not too far away anymore. Krause had one episode from the Schauspielereien series afterwards, also 1986, and Petzold had one film released in 1991, so already in reunited Germany and that was it for the two. Petzold was the more prolific from this duo. I don't think he is related to Christian though, the pretty famous German filmmaker who has worked with Nina Hoss and others on many occasions, already because the latter was not born in the GDR.
The cast includes the name Herbert Köfer and he is the key reason why I watched this film today. Actually it was only on for him because he has his 100th birthday these days and on that occasion the German television channel MDR shows many of his films once again. They are the ones with a connection to the part of Germany that belonged to the GDR back then, so not a big surprise. Anyway, best wishe and a lot of health to Köfer of course. What a truly special occasion. And also nice to see that he seems to be at good enough health to still play a brief part in a Krause movie. Horst Krause that is, not the writer from this one here. Köfer also gave little introductions to those films shown once again now, which was a pretty nice idea and seeing him there at this ancient age felt almost more interesting to me than some of the films itself. Okay that sounds harsh. By the way, he gives away his character's age on one occasion in this film and it was similar too Köfer's real age back then, also in his 60s. As this means that this is already a pretty old film, it also means that some of the cast members here are no longer with us. One would be Marianne Kiefer, who is first credit here and died over a decade ago, although she was born almost a decade after Köfer, so she did not reach a really high age. Nothing super young either though. And sadly, Frank-Otto Schenk, the actor who plays Köfer's character's son in here, is also no longer with us. He died last year when he was still in his 70s. Edgar Külow, who plays the neighbor in the second half also died quite a while ago, but he got much older than the other two and would also be close to 100 soon if he was still with us. So pretty much almost half of the cast here are no longer with us. The younger ones of course are. Some of the actors here also did not have prolific careers at all and their careers ended before the 1990s. This applies mostly to the women. The men all enjoyed success in reunited Germany as well.
Now let's take a bit of a look at the story here. The title is basically almost entirely job-related, even if it sounds very dated. The old man is proud that his grandson is going for a similar job like the one he had back in the day. You could think that this is the key plot (given the title), but the action movies really quickly away from that. And the inclusions that take care of the screen time feel really random. Just take the scene with the motorbike. So random as there was virtually nothing leading up to that and all of a sudden, there is this vehicle standing i the middle of the room. If you should find the pants that Köfer's character is wearing on that occasion as funny as the audience did is debatable. Still, this moment and also the running gag early on with stuff falling from the wall every time somebody went up the stairs were better than a lot of the other stuff. The older woman's joking about how her man may not have been the most faithful throughout their marriage, especially in the early years, was how they started the film comedy-wise and honestly this could not have been more embarrassing and worse and they also did not only use it once briefly, but turned an entire conversation around this idea. Not cool. Later on, we have some confusion about a pregnancy when the young man I mentioned earlier apparently managed to get a girl pregnant and through some mishap, people assume the old man did and is responsible, even if the woman is 40 years younger or even more compared to him. Not gonna lie, Köfer's line delivery, also how he expressed that he likes it that people still think he could do stuff like that was fairly funny. But I must say nonetheless that the really loud and exaggerated applause on so many occasions took away some of the fun here for me. Which sucks even more because there was not a great deal of fun honestly.
In general, you can say that this one slightly improves the longer it goes. It is never a satisfying watch and I never really thought about giving it a thumbs-up. On the contrary, here and there it is closer to a truly negative recommendation of only two out of ten stars. But let's be generous here. Honestly, that terrible it is not, but the humor with GDR comedies (and that is 100% family comedy) is always a bit on the bizarre side. You could certainly see that they could not really let loose with the political background. But trying to sell us rather unfunny stuff as a revelation is also not a good compomise. Oh well, maybe I am doing them injustice. I mean look at how crazy the people in the audience go. Also the big applause every time a new character has his/her first moment. Honestly, I kinda wish I could have been there. As a grown-up I mean, not as a toddler. To suck in the enthusiastic atmosphere. If there is any perspective from which this is a really interesting project, then it would be the perception of humor and comedy decades ago. I am sure if somebody did the same today, there would be almost no laughter during these moment that seemed to be a riot back then. If they even get people to fill the place, that is. But yeah, I kinda feel that many older people nowadays who maybe originate from the GDR could have seen this back then (apparently Köfer was a big name really) and they still find it somewhat funny or at least it brings back some nostalgia for them and maybe some nice memories how they watched stuff like that with their parents back in the day. For that alone, it is nice that it was on again, even if the time was maybe not the best choice, especially with older people going to bed early. And if we are honest, even if this was not a revelation and felt pretty boring to me most of the time, it is still on the underseen side and maybe should not forgotten and is definitely better than most of what ARD Degeto has come up with in the last 20 years. Still for me it's a thumbs-down. Not recommended.
The director is Eberhard Schäfer. He was highly prolific since launching his career in the late 1960s, but stopped pretty much when Germany was reunited. If that was because he simply chose retirement or if he struggled to find work, I am not sure about. I mean 22 years is not a long career, but I don't know when he started, so maybe he was older already. In any case, there should be much more known about his background, his whereabout and if he is still alive than there is. A bit of a pity to see he was basically forgotten and so have been most of his films. This one here barely manages to have the five ratings to create an imdb vote. Mine actually took it to five. However, I must also say that the quality here did not win my over, so I am not too eager to watch more from him soon. Saw another work the other day because he worked with Köfer there too, but I will get to that later. In any case, this film here is from a time that was pretty close to the end of his career already. The writers here are Krause and Petzold and this was not the only occasion for which the two collaborated. For both of them, it was, just like for the director, one of their later credits and the ends of their careers were not too far away anymore. Krause had one episode from the Schauspielereien series afterwards, also 1986, and Petzold had one film released in 1991, so already in reunited Germany and that was it for the two. Petzold was the more prolific from this duo. I don't think he is related to Christian though, the pretty famous German filmmaker who has worked with Nina Hoss and others on many occasions, already because the latter was not born in the GDR.
The cast includes the name Herbert Köfer and he is the key reason why I watched this film today. Actually it was only on for him because he has his 100th birthday these days and on that occasion the German television channel MDR shows many of his films once again. They are the ones with a connection to the part of Germany that belonged to the GDR back then, so not a big surprise. Anyway, best wishe and a lot of health to Köfer of course. What a truly special occasion. And also nice to see that he seems to be at good enough health to still play a brief part in a Krause movie. Horst Krause that is, not the writer from this one here. Köfer also gave little introductions to those films shown once again now, which was a pretty nice idea and seeing him there at this ancient age felt almost more interesting to me than some of the films itself. Okay that sounds harsh. By the way, he gives away his character's age on one occasion in this film and it was similar too Köfer's real age back then, also in his 60s. As this means that this is already a pretty old film, it also means that some of the cast members here are no longer with us. One would be Marianne Kiefer, who is first credit here and died over a decade ago, although she was born almost a decade after Köfer, so she did not reach a really high age. Nothing super young either though. And sadly, Frank-Otto Schenk, the actor who plays Köfer's character's son in here, is also no longer with us. He died last year when he was still in his 70s. Edgar Külow, who plays the neighbor in the second half also died quite a while ago, but he got much older than the other two and would also be close to 100 soon if he was still with us. So pretty much almost half of the cast here are no longer with us. The younger ones of course are. Some of the actors here also did not have prolific careers at all and their careers ended before the 1990s. This applies mostly to the women. The men all enjoyed success in reunited Germany as well.
Now let's take a bit of a look at the story here. The title is basically almost entirely job-related, even if it sounds very dated. The old man is proud that his grandson is going for a similar job like the one he had back in the day. You could think that this is the key plot (given the title), but the action movies really quickly away from that. And the inclusions that take care of the screen time feel really random. Just take the scene with the motorbike. So random as there was virtually nothing leading up to that and all of a sudden, there is this vehicle standing i the middle of the room. If you should find the pants that Köfer's character is wearing on that occasion as funny as the audience did is debatable. Still, this moment and also the running gag early on with stuff falling from the wall every time somebody went up the stairs were better than a lot of the other stuff. The older woman's joking about how her man may not have been the most faithful throughout their marriage, especially in the early years, was how they started the film comedy-wise and honestly this could not have been more embarrassing and worse and they also did not only use it once briefly, but turned an entire conversation around this idea. Not cool. Later on, we have some confusion about a pregnancy when the young man I mentioned earlier apparently managed to get a girl pregnant and through some mishap, people assume the old man did and is responsible, even if the woman is 40 years younger or even more compared to him. Not gonna lie, Köfer's line delivery, also how he expressed that he likes it that people still think he could do stuff like that was fairly funny. But I must say nonetheless that the really loud and exaggerated applause on so many occasions took away some of the fun here for me. Which sucks even more because there was not a great deal of fun honestly.
In general, you can say that this one slightly improves the longer it goes. It is never a satisfying watch and I never really thought about giving it a thumbs-up. On the contrary, here and there it is closer to a truly negative recommendation of only two out of ten stars. But let's be generous here. Honestly, that terrible it is not, but the humor with GDR comedies (and that is 100% family comedy) is always a bit on the bizarre side. You could certainly see that they could not really let loose with the political background. But trying to sell us rather unfunny stuff as a revelation is also not a good compomise. Oh well, maybe I am doing them injustice. I mean look at how crazy the people in the audience go. Also the big applause every time a new character has his/her first moment. Honestly, I kinda wish I could have been there. As a grown-up I mean, not as a toddler. To suck in the enthusiastic atmosphere. If there is any perspective from which this is a really interesting project, then it would be the perception of humor and comedy decades ago. I am sure if somebody did the same today, there would be almost no laughter during these moment that seemed to be a riot back then. If they even get people to fill the place, that is. But yeah, I kinda feel that many older people nowadays who maybe originate from the GDR could have seen this back then (apparently Köfer was a big name really) and they still find it somewhat funny or at least it brings back some nostalgia for them and maybe some nice memories how they watched stuff like that with their parents back in the day. For that alone, it is nice that it was on again, even if the time was maybe not the best choice, especially with older people going to bed early. And if we are honest, even if this was not a revelation and felt pretty boring to me most of the time, it is still on the underseen side and maybe should not forgotten and is definitely better than most of what ARD Degeto has come up with in the last 20 years. Still for me it's a thumbs-down. Not recommended.