"Quatsch und die Nasenbärbande" is about a coati named "Quatsch" (means "Nonsense" and a group of very small children living in the most average town in Germany. As their place is so average, a group of pollsters show up knowing that everything the citizens of this town like will also find great approval in the rest of Germany. Sadly a coati is not very average, so he needs to be gone. As do the grandparents of the children, who try to come up with weird inventions or are just goofy in general. So are the grandchildren, but sadly not the parents who try to get the elderly into retirement homes. Looks like silliness and creativity skip a generation in this film.
The film is what the title implies: nonsense, but not necessarily in a bad way. I saw a making-of documentary before watching the actual movie, which focused mostly on the work with the coatis and how there never have been coatis "acting" in a movie before (or at least not in a central role, I'm not entirely sure). As the film focused more on all the inventions, especially towards the end, than on the relationships between the characters, it was not that emotionally involving. There were a few nice scenes though where we see one of the elderly waving through the window of a car towards their grandchildren. Another had the life story of a woman who was a climber and who was not allowed by her daughter to climb a tree now that she was old. That old woman and her grandchild sitting atop of the tree, with the daughter/mother standing down there and complaining about the two actually summarized the character relationships nicely in one single scene.
All in all, it was a good film, especially for younger audiences. unfortunately, the whole technical stuff including the inventions did not interest me that much and as it was the great highlight finally, it left me a bit disappointed with the ending. I'd have liked to see more coati action instead, especially with the coati featured prominently in the film's title. The only invention idea which made me smile was the idea of providing every household with milk directly from the cattle with the help of a giant tube system. The kids tying up the kindergarten worker was a funny running gag and did not feel repetitive to me. The film's main theme song was catchy too.
Finally, looking at the cast, you will find a handful established German actors here. They all don't have that much screen time as it is the kids pretty much from start to finish (the grown-ups even sleep for a large part of the movie), but you get to see Benno Fürmann, Fritzi Haberlandt, Rolf Zacher, Volker Michalowski and some more. As a whole I can recommend watching this film. The plot about getting the grandparents back is a nice one that adds some warmth to the otherwise goofy plots. To sum it all up, I would like to mention a scene very early in the movie during which the kids sit atop a construction site. This shot made me think about the famous "Manhattan Steelworkers" portrait and I genuinely wonder if this was actually the filmmakers' intention or just a random idea that came to my mind.
The film is what the title implies: nonsense, but not necessarily in a bad way. I saw a making-of documentary before watching the actual movie, which focused mostly on the work with the coatis and how there never have been coatis "acting" in a movie before (or at least not in a central role, I'm not entirely sure). As the film focused more on all the inventions, especially towards the end, than on the relationships between the characters, it was not that emotionally involving. There were a few nice scenes though where we see one of the elderly waving through the window of a car towards their grandchildren. Another had the life story of a woman who was a climber and who was not allowed by her daughter to climb a tree now that she was old. That old woman and her grandchild sitting atop of the tree, with the daughter/mother standing down there and complaining about the two actually summarized the character relationships nicely in one single scene.
All in all, it was a good film, especially for younger audiences. unfortunately, the whole technical stuff including the inventions did not interest me that much and as it was the great highlight finally, it left me a bit disappointed with the ending. I'd have liked to see more coati action instead, especially with the coati featured prominently in the film's title. The only invention idea which made me smile was the idea of providing every household with milk directly from the cattle with the help of a giant tube system. The kids tying up the kindergarten worker was a funny running gag and did not feel repetitive to me. The film's main theme song was catchy too.
Finally, looking at the cast, you will find a handful established German actors here. They all don't have that much screen time as it is the kids pretty much from start to finish (the grown-ups even sleep for a large part of the movie), but you get to see Benno Fürmann, Fritzi Haberlandt, Rolf Zacher, Volker Michalowski and some more. As a whole I can recommend watching this film. The plot about getting the grandparents back is a nice one that adds some warmth to the otherwise goofy plots. To sum it all up, I would like to mention a scene very early in the movie during which the kids sit atop a construction site. This shot made me think about the famous "Manhattan Steelworkers" portrait and I genuinely wonder if this was actually the filmmakers' intention or just a random idea that came to my mind.
