Hotel Lux (Film)

• Michael Herbig: Hans Siskin
• Jürgen Vogel: Siggi Meyer
• Thekla Reuten: Frida van Oorten
• Alexander Senderovich: Yezhov
• Valery Grishko: Josef Stalin
• Juraj Kukura: Vasily Vasilyevich Ulrich
• Thomas Thieme: Georgi Dimitrov
• Sebastian Blomberg: Karl -Heinz Müller
• Axel Wandtke: Walter Ulbricht
• Steffi Kuehnert: Lotte Kühn
• Robert Dolle J. R. Becher
• Daniel Wiemer: Herbert Wehner
• Matthias Brenner: Wilhelm Pieck
• Sibylle Canonica: Woman plates
• Johann Adam Oest: Valetti

Hotel Lux is a German tragicomedy from 2011 by director Leander Haussmann, who also wrote the screenplay for the film. The main characters are Michael Herbig, Jürgen Vogel and Thekla Reuten are seen. The film's title refers to the eponymous hotel in Moscow, where in the 1930s, political emigrants were quartered.

Action

In a Berlin vaudeville early 1933 Siegfried Meyer and Hans Siskin work in their roles as imitators of Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin. While Siggi Communist is to Siskin holds more like Sideshow and provides for the seizure of power only as a passing episode. His dream is Hollywood.

After the Reichstag fire, the " for the protection of people and state regulation of the Reich President " led to, and served as a pretext for baiting, Siggi is forced to flee. Before learning Zeisig the Dutch Communist Frida van Oorten know, who comes from a good family and entrains a convinced communist Siggi. After the Kristallnacht in 1938 the comedian Hans Siskin loses his sheltered him chief Goldberg ( Artist name: Valetti ). He also learns that his friend Siggi has landed in the Oranienburg concentration camp. As an act of desperation, Siskin dressed as Hitler and joined for the last time on the stage. Now he has to flee for good. In the short time there are no passports for the U.S., but only a pass that was actually for Jan Hansen, Hitler's former personal astrologer in the Third Reich, is provided.

Where Siskin got into the device, it recognizes only after his arrival in Moscow at the Hotel Lux The first disillusionment comes through the Kafkaesque realization that he ( pass ) is required for all a " propusk ". Also, make him the many rats clear that this is not a grand hotel. Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov holds him for the person for whom the passport was originally issued. Siskin rejoins the Dutch underground fighter Frida, who protects him as his interpreter.

The hotel is located dissidents and especially German exile - communists, who mostly work for the Communist International. Some of them will later reach very high profile, but at this time are still somewhat unknown. Him imagine, among others, Wilhelm Pieck, Walter Ulbricht and Kurt Funk ( Herbert Wehner ). Quick understands siskin that Trotskyists or even those who had only contact with other disgraced Communist Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin, live dangerously. Mostly at night knock on the door to pick up the unwelcome guests. Siskin are lucky to live on the wing for officials, and is moved to the dacha of Josef Stalin. This will question him whether he should negotiate with Adolf Hitler. The actor Siskin leaves a good impression and receives the Druzhba Orden ( Order of Friendship ).

However, when the actual astrologer Hansen appears to Yezhov and Vasily Vasilyevich Ulrich decide to prefer to leave the Stalin -known man than admitting a mistake. Siskin begins with the utensils of the true Hansen deliver a compelling image. He also learned the Russian language. Just when he met Frida better, arrives also his old friend and colleague Siggi. Siggi and Frida are just as convinced Communists as all the other guests of the hotel. However, in the context of the great purge, the three endangered. The change in the NKVD by Lawrenti Beria rescues short Frida and siskin.

When Stalin personally come to the hotel for a visit to Siskin with conduct before the German -Soviet non-aggression pact, he is in danger again. Stalin already knows that Siskin is only an impostor, but it did not interfere, because his advice was useful anyway. Siggi and siskin overwhelm Stalin and dress up as Stalin and Hitler. Ridding Frida from the Lubyanka, and before the eyes of Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov they can get away with an airplane. Your goal is Hollywood.

Background

• The film is dedicated to the 2010 deceased actor Ezard Haussmann, father of director Leander Haussmann, in the credits.

Cinema, TV

• The premiere was on 25 October 2011 in Lichtenburg in Essen, theatrical release in Germany then on 27 October 2011. By the end of November 2011 reached Hotel Lux in Germany about 150,000 moviegoers. The film was shown on October 29, 2011 in Rome at the film festival Festival Internazionale del film di Roma in the competition.
• The WDR broadcast on 4 November 2011 under the title Bully Special - Hotel Lux is a 45- minute documentary on the film.
• The film was shown on arte on August 19 in the evening program with night rerun on September 11, 2013

Production

A first idea had Helmut Dietl fifteen years ago. Five years ago, producer Günter Rohrbach was a synopsis for the film in order that rejected the add Come director Leander Haussmann. The written script by director Haussmann himself rejected the add Come protagonist Michael Herbig for the time being, until you finally able to agree on a screenplay himself.

Filming began on October 12, 2010 and ended on December 16, 2010. Was shot in Berlin and at different locations in North Rhine -Westphalia.

January Hansen

On the website of the film four persons mentioned, which were known at the time and could serve as inspiration for the fictional character by Jan Hansen:

• Wolf brass had to flee in 1939 as a Jewish Communist Russia, where she learned to know Stalin.
• Karl Ernst Krafft predicted the attack of Georg Elser, but fell after the flight of Rudolf Hess in disgrace and died in a concentration camp.
• Theodor Wilhelm Wulff worked as an astrologer with Heinrich Himmler.
• Erik January Hanussen acted as a sympathizer of the Nazis, predicted the burning of the Reichstag in 1933 and was shot in the same year.

Reviews

" The first quarter of an hour of" Hotel Lux "is a terrific lubrication comedians double that ironically the different and yet always pretty similar malapropisms Hitler reflected upon. [ ... ] In Haußmann the historical characters left silhouette target, the legendary " Hotel Lux " stay comes as a kind of ghost train of real socialism. But as a parable about the interplay of body and politics, mask and ideology developed the dictators Ballet considerable dynamism. "

" " Hotel Lux " stares at the crucial moment always a few seconds too long on drama, what the ultimate for good comedy timing repeatedly destroyed. Since the sentence sounds: " If the film makes people to inform themselves about the time we have achieved a lot " like a barren alibi ".

" To crack jokes - and they were still so subtle - about historical atrocities of murder and torture, which will deter many viewers more. And yet Haussmann and his team have been able to make the fictional substance applied to historical facts an absurd comedy. [ ... ] And in fact, the film works on two levels. Hilarious scenes alternate with sequences in which the viewer is likely to get stuck in the throat from laughing. [ ... ] The fact that not all the gags work equally, goes without saying, but the bottom line Leander Haussmann has " Hotel Lux " can build on his strongest film works - probably because he has a piece of his own biography processed in the movie. "

" Where Michael Bully Herbig already moves as siskin almost gracefully through the scenery, Haussmann ranks now as usual numbers à la revue together. [ ... ] All this is certainly a matter of taste. It is interesting, however, confusion farce: Due to his false passport Hans Siskin is mistaken for Hitler's astrologer who is secretly advised Stalin. How has the unfortunate hero overcomes, which triggers a spiral of deception his lie that is captivating. Yes, for Haußmann ratios it is almost refined! [ ... ] What would Ernst Lubitsch made ​​of it! Or Mel Brooks! Apparently Haußmann part of our historical punishment. "

" It almost seems as though director Leander Haussmann with " Hotel Lux " invent a genre of its own: We laugh about Hitler, you laugh about Stalin - and who knows, most of the time, if that's okay. [ ... ] So " Hotel Lux " with some funny dance scenes and gags, and the viewer begins immediately feels quite a typical Bully film in offset. But the first impression is wrong; already overtaken the seriousness of the situation the cinema viewers, Siggi must submerge, even for Hans going gets tough. [ ... ] Leander Haussmann's film takes place in a period in which for comedies really is no place. Between jokes and absurd events people are deported or simply shot. The viewer is placed in a predicament in which he often does not know whether it's okay to laugh. Haussmann has not created a simple comedy, but he is trying to master the difficult balancing act between tragic events and the genre of comedy. Between humorous and loose passages, the threat is felt again and again. [ ...] This exchange between seriousness and fun, and the impossibility to assign the film a certain genre, make his appeal, but are also very unusual. "

" The genre of comedy took advantage of [ ...] ( Leander Haussmann ) as a " Trojan horse " in order to interest the audience for the dramatic historical events in the Soviet Union, about the mandatory prior knowledge can not be assumed. [ ... ] Leander Haussmann leaves out no gag. As a comedy, his film works brilliantly. Almost too good [ ... ]. But one thing is for sure the film: Great cinema ".

"The film [ ... ] investigated this atmosphere of pervasive paranoia to view the hotel stay again in detail. Model guest of demonstrative apolitical Siskin [ ... ] Beautiful is laconic, the film grabs now all it has to offer this milieu - and exaggerates only the nuances. [ ... ] Denunciations are enforced, arrested mothers before their children. These ravines but do to so casually that the audience still chuckles as he sees approaching new horrors. [ ... ] So much for the history lesson, which by the way, of course, takes place. You have to annoy even once due and despite all the floating ideas in Hotel Lux. Kindle rare in loud laughter, but they always have fun. That you can not say very often by a German comedy. "

Produced " Solid and visually quite impressive, the film suffers from its muddled plot, but mainly because he does not balance the bitter seriousness of the historical reality and its comedic exaggeration. So funny and exciting to be headless joined to each other and cancel each other out. "

Awards

Hotel Lux won a Producer's Award at the Bavarian Film Prize 2011. The German Film and Media Review gave the film the predicate particularly valuable. 2012 was followed by three nominations for the German Film Prize (Production Designer - Uli Hanisch, costume design - Ute Paffendorf, makeup - Kitty Kratschke, Catherine Nädelin and Georg Korpás ).