Monpti

By the Mid-50s, the axis Bonn-Paris had successfully been established as the defining political force of the slowly uniting Europe. Accordingly, German cinema was looking closely at the erstwhile Erbfeind (= hereditary foe) turned best friend by the tides of the ages, resulting in several films where the locals played French – as if to try and feel what it means to be that particular other; usually, this ended in splendid caricatures and whimsical fantasies – rare is the hint of feelings more darkly. In this general spirit of playfulness, Monpti opens with a cheeky meta-film-joke: Horst "Hotte" Buchholz and Romy Schneider are introduced speaking French for they play a French couple in love (of course) – only to start speaking German the moment the omniscient narrator explains the movie miracle of dubbing; things is: the moment the film claims that foreigner were made understandable for German-only speakers, it's un boche and une autrichienne using their own voices. Topsy-turvy, hurly-burly everything goes – but then, what else to expect from a film whose title is a corruption of mon petit (pronounced MONpti and not monP'ti by just-about every German-speaker...), and which imagines a Paris to end all visions of Paris: totally stylized, idealized, etherealized the way only a German melancholic could on the basis of a theatre piece by a Hungarian cosmopolitan of the old Hapsburg school? Dreams are their reality... (OM) (Midnight Sun Film Festival)