User Reviews

"Der Hodscha und die Piepenkötter" tells the story of a power-hungry mayor, that has to find a difficult balance when her voters begin to strongly oppose the local mosque. At the same time an orthodox hardliner tries to take over the muslim community and the hodscha's daughter falls in love with the mayor's daughter.

Already from this short description you get quite a good impression what a mess this plot is. The general, often humorous, fight between the two main characters in itself is quite charming, however this story is just so unlikely and obviously constructed that at some times it is hard to take it fully serious. As much as I support every effort to oppose right wing hardliners, films like this one won't do the deal and in fact are more of a burden than support.

All in all this is humor for old people. Provocative but not too much, stereotypical in the attempt to minimize stereotypes but still with some decent moments and no harm done.

"Der Hodscha und die Piepenkötter" is a German television film from February 2016, so it is only another six months until this one has its 5th anniversary. It runs for 1.5 hours and the director Buket Alakus as well as writer Gernot Griksch are people who have worked on films in the past that are not your average trashy afternoon television stuff from Germany. However, in terms of what I have seen here with this film, this categorization is exactly where they belong quality-wise. The novel this is based on is by Binrad Binguel, apparently his only book that got turned into a movie. I have not read said book, but I am pretty sure that it is not completely different compared to the movie, so it is probably a good thing that none of his other works (if there are any) have been turned into a film. Actually, Binguel apparently directed a full feature documentary a decade earlier, so he may have other roots too and in contrast to that Griksch has written more than one novels himself that got turned into (fairly successful) movies. A bit upside down all this when it comes to the people who made this film. Perhaps that is why it turned out so weak overall. As for the cast, only two names are familiar for me. Hilmi Sözer plays the male lead and he is alway easy to identify. I don't think, however, that he is a particularly good actor. He started his career a long ago with the help of trashy comedies and now, at a "serious" age, he is making movies like this one that are still comedies at its core, but more of a distinguished level. Or well, actually not: They try to be distinguished, send out a message about tolerance and understanding, but at its core, it is just equally uninspired trash like the one he made in his early years. But at least here he is not hiding it, so it is in fact even worse than what he did early on. He has also been in non-comedy films over the years in fact. The second I know is Fabian Busch, who plays a supporting character here. There is not too much to say about him as the film is never really about anybody other than the two central characters you see on the photo. I think he is a better actor than he is allowed to show us here. Also on the photo you see by the way the fact that this mess was indeed shown on ARD for prime time, which is really embarrassing. Your GEZ money at work, folks. Stand up. Anyway, you also see on the left the female protagonist and I must say I am not familiar at all with actress Anna Stieblich, probably because I have never watched "Türkisch für Anfänger", but her inclusion there and also here with this slightly similar background of dealing with foreign culture shows me that she may not have the widest range if she accepts similar "challenges" like these two. And while her performance was not horrible, it wasn't good either although she maybe had the most challenging part. I have a feeling almost no actress could have made it work becaue of how poorly it was written, but this is no excuse. Nobody forced her to accept the role.

Now let's go a bit into the story and take a look at specific scenes and moments where this film sucked. First of all, I found the general summary fairly embarrassing and in fact a lie because it pretends to give an insight about radical approaches from both sides. Right wing and Muslims. It does not really do any of that. Or well, I should say only elaborates on the former evil. hich is of course expected for an ARD movie and I don't know why I am even surprised ARD once again lied to us. Of course it does not elaborate on radical Islam with more than one or two lines and when it did, then really by pretending something that is true is according to them not true. But let's not get too political here, even if it is all too easy. There are many unpolitical reasons too why this film sucked. Just take the first encounter of the two protagonists with each of them in their own car. Or take everything romance-related between them. There is nothing specific really, but it is implied that there could be more between them after the film ends. And what is in fact not implied is the relationship between their kids, especially the interest the boy has in the girl with how he wonders about the girl's name's meaning or how he learns a few words Turkish to impress her. It was fairly cringeworthy. Not like sweet young love, but really more from the fake and forced perspective. Also the way school life here was depicted with the Turkish girl coming to school and the class being racist immediately or rejecting her because of her ethnicity. This is not hat reality looks like. On the contrary. On better schools the kids just don't care or are even smart enought to be tolerant, while on worse schools, there are so many Muslims that the new kid would get integrated quickly. This film is doing the exact opposite of what it wants to do, namely oppose integration because of its clumsy and untalented shots at comedy in terms of this fairly heavy subject. I am kidna curious now if the writer equally messed up or if it all got lost in translation. Anyway, everything at the core of this film is failure territory. Be it not just the protagonists' kids getting closer, but even the protagonists themselves. Or with the entire idea of a mosque (not) being built, obviously there was no elaboration on the subject of Christian churches being built in the Islamic world. Just take a look at what happened with the Hagia Sophia not too long ago. But that would lead too far now. This film we have here is surely not the innocent little comedy it pretends to be. The best example is the final speech from Sözer's character about all he and his people want to do is pray, but all they run into is hatred and prejudice. Well, let me assure you that there are people to whom this description applies, many Muslims who just want their peace, but these are usually not the ones who you find inside mosques. Or at least not on a regular basis and that there is a lot more going on than praying. Finally, in addition a few more moments from this film why it sucked: the switched tape, the cringeworthy title, Piepenkötter final statement of "tolerance" and, most of all, the evil racist German guys constantly filming Sözer's character and his family to find evidence how he is a bad guy. But of course, even if those racist villains may be twice his size, he easily knocks them out. Which also has to do with his anger issues, but beating up Nazis is always fun is what this film implies as well and what is a truly despicable message. Extremists from both ends of the spectrum shall not experience violence, but reason in order to change their minds perhaps and like I said, this applies to left wing fanatism as much as to right wing fanatism. This film is getting it all wrong and there is no justification for anything in here and even if you take all the politice out, which is kinda impossible, it is still completely on failure territory, for example with the scenes between the protagonists' teenage kids. Big thumbs-down. Highly not recommended.