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*** This review may contain spoilers ***
It is quite a while I saw this controversial movie, but as nobody else wrote a comment, I feel compelled to do so. The film caused a scandal in Germany in the mid-eighties. The that-time Minister of the Interior Zimmermann, a conservative Roman-Catholic and a Bavarian like director Achternbusch, decided that such a blasphemous movie should not be supported and withdrew state funding which the production already had received. This created more publicity for the movie than, I guess, any other movie Achternbusch had made before. The film is actually quite funny. Jesus (played by the director) returns to present-day Bavaria, walks around Munich in a somewhat dazed manner and strikes up an affair with a nun, arguing that they are married anyway. Therefore, he refers to himself as "Ober" (waiter), obviously the male form of "Oberin" (Mother Superior). He occasionally transforms into a snake when being afraid and is finally carried up into the sky by the nun, who transforms into a bird of prey. Blasphemy? Sure, but in a rather bizarre fashion. The film obviously doesn't take itself too seriously - one particular highlight comes when two policemen try to defecate into two tiny Schnaps glasses. Like in many of his other films, Achternbusch targets Bavaria's everyday culture with his meandering, anarchic, quirky ideas, and like his other films, this has a deliberately amateurish look. The pacing is uneven and can become challenging, but the cinematography is at times quite beautiful. Overall, if you look for edgy, quirky films that deliberately defy standards of slick movie making, this can be some fun.
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