Cinema and Social Change in Germany and Austria

8 Creative Chaos as Political Strategy in Recent German-Language Cinema

8 Creative Chaos as Political Strategy in Recent German-Language Cinema Mary-Elizabeth O’Brien Abstract Against the two-sided coin of political idealism with its call for a perfect society and its use of force to obtain such lofty goals, this chapter examines two films that present “creative chaos” as a strategy to protest against the loss of utopian dreams. Hans Weingartner’s Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei and Marcus Mittermeier’s Muxmäuschenstill are black comedies about young people who want to teach ordinary citizens about equality, civility, and responsibility in a world beset with injustice. These films reflect a growing discomfort with the lack of political and moral high ground, and they seek creative means to redefine German national identity in a globally responsible framework. T he fall of the Berlin Wall and the demise of communism in Europe have contributed to a growing sense that currently there is no politically viable alternativetocapitalism.Livinginaworldinwhichtheclearlinesbetween bipolar superpowers have been erased and nearly every imaginable youth rebellion has failed to overthrow the system, what is left for a young generation to do to eradicate social injustice? A look at recent German-language films shows that many of the ideals embodied in the 1968 student revolts remain a powerfulundercurrentintheBerlinRepublic .Oneofthemostenduringnotionsisthat capitalism is inherently unjust and that the establishment uses consumerism as a strategy to distract citizens with self-indulgence, thereby averting their attention from serious social problems. In post-millennial Germany, counterculture movements share with 68ers the conviction that mass media form a cog in the wheel of global capitalism. Demonization of the media, especially television, as 133 thesystem’stooltopacifythemassesanddulltheirsenseshasbecomeanincreasingly popular theme in motion pictures, as the following examples demonstrate. A scathing critique of mass media can be found in the omnibus film GG 19: 19 gute Gründe für die Demokratie (GG 19: Nineteen Good Reasons for Democracy , 2007), made by Harald Siebler and eighteen other directors. Siebler called on scriptwriters to propose six-minute stories about the fundamental civil rights embodied in the first nineteen articles of the constitution. In response 482 scriptsweresubmittedtoajuryforconsideration,andover1,500individualsparticipated in making the 19 episodes that make up the 149-minute film. In the segment “AdrenalinFlash”(JohannesvonGwinner),whichisdevotedtoArticle1 guaranteeing the inalienable right to human dignity, a man is attacked in his home, tied up, and forced to watch on a monitor as his wife and children are tortured , only to learn that he is an unwitting contestant on a bizarre reality television show. In Egoshooter (Christian Becker and Oliver Schwabe, 2004), the main character, Jakob, is obsessed with creating a video diary and uses his camera like a vital appendage of his body and mind, as if his thoughts and actions make sense only through the camera lens. Jacob and his friend believe that in a world saturated with images, the media manipulate the youth and prevent them from organizing and working for social change. Finally, Hans Weingartner’s Free Rainer: Dein Fernseher lügt (Free Rainer: Your Television Is Lying, 2007) is a satirical critique of the television industry, in which a ruthless trash-television producer recognizes that his shows contribute to the dumbing down of the masses and begins a clandestine campaign to change viewers’ habits and the industry’s offerings. Within this context, this essay examines Hans Weingartner’s Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei (The Edukators, 2004) and Marcus Mittermeier’s Muxmäuschenstill (Quiet as a Mouse, 2004). Both films also seem to display a growing dissatisfaction with political and cultural processes in contemporary society. Against the two-sided coin of political idealism with its call for a perfect society and its use of force to obtain such lofty goals, both films present “creative chaos” as a strategy to protest against the loss of utopian dreams. Creative chaos can be understood asaformofpolitical engagement, whereby established patterns of behaviour are disrupted through playful or innovative acts in the hope of generating widespread cognition of society’s failures and the need for a new social order. Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei and Muxmäuschenstill were both low(er)-budget productions that quickly became box-office hits. From its cinematic release on November 25, 2004, until the end of 2005, Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei sold 873,935 tickets in German theatres, ranking it slightly behind the critically acclaimed Sophie Scholl: Die letzten Tage (Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, Marc REASSESSING AND CONSUMING HISTORY 134 Rothemund, 2005) with 1,096...