Forwards Ever!

Name: Vorwärts immer!
Genre: Comedy
Released: 2017-10-12
Duration: 1 h 34 min
Rating: 5.5
Cast: Jörg Schüttauf, Josefine Preuß, Jacob Matschenz

Original title: Vorwärts immer!

20172017
1h 34m

5.5/10

290

Comedy

Berlin 1989, shortly before the fall of the Wall: While the actor Otto is rehearsing for his role as head of state and party leader Erich Honecker, the regime is fighting for survival. The m... Read allBerlin 1989, shortly before the fall of the Wall: While the actor Otto is rehearsing for his role as head of state and party leader Erich Honecker, the regime is fighting for survival. The military and police are preparing to use force to crush the Leipzig Monday demonstration in... Read allBerlin 1989, shortly before the fall of the Wall: While the actor Otto is rehearsing for his role as head of state and party leader Erich Honecker, the regime is fighting for survival. The military and police are preparing to use force to crush the Leipzig Monday demonstration in the evening. To protect his pregnant daughter Anne, who wants to get forged papers for he... Read all

5.5/10

290

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Awards
- 3 wins

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Berlin 1989, shortly before the fall of the Wall: While the actor Otto is rehearsing for his role as head of state and party leader Erich Honecker, the regime is fighting for survival. The military and police are preparing to use force to crush the Leipzig Monday demonstration in the evening. To protect his pregnant daughter Anne, who wants to get forged papers for her escape from the republic in Leipzig, of all days, Otto comes up with a daring plan: disguised as Honecker, he wants to withdraw the order to shoot. The opportunity is good because the real head of state is out hunting all day. Others also want to use his absence: Crown Prince Krenz and Stasi chief Mielke, who are secretly preparing a change of power in the Central Committee. The putschists are all the more astonished when they suddenly see Honecker in front of them. Otto plays the role of his life - but unfortunately the unexpected appearance of Margot, the secret ruler of the workers 'and peasants' state, thwarted his plans at the last minute. Meanwhile, the Stasi is on the heels of his daughter and her contact August, who is secretly filming for western television. And Anne has someone else on her cheek: her jealous friend Matti. He wants to dissuade her from her escape plans - and above all to pull away from August. —ARD Das Erste

Genre
- Comedy
Parents guide
- Add content advisory

Trivia
The movie title is based on the Erich Honecker quote "Vorwärts immer, rückwärts nimmer!" (Forward ever, backward never!)

Goofs
In a scene where Leipzig is showed from the top the church "Probsteikirche" can be seen in the background, which was built between 2013-2015. The scene takes place in 1989.

Quotes
Rettungssanitäter: [mistaking the fake Honecker for the real one] It is impressing how good his shape is. This skin, so young. Touch it.
Margot Honecker: We haven't been touching each other for a very long time.

Crazy credits
The opening closing credits are showed in the style of a TV broadcast with interferences.

Connections
References To Be or Not to Be (1942)

Top review

9/10

This is a plain insider movie

It very much borrows from 'To be or not to be', the 1942 movie of a theatre troupe playing a piece on Hitler, when at some moment in time the actor is needed to step in for the real Hitler. Great fun.

And here almost everything is in parallel, except that the actor has to play Erich Honnecker, the former strongman of the former GDR.

The whole lot comes across totally hilarious, though probably only to native Germans old enough to have had sufficient contacts and knowledge of the former GDR. The typical East-German dialect and the typical mumbling of Erich Honnecker, the typical Berlin dialect of the daughter, and the actual occurrences in the autumn of 1989 are almost a prerequisite for a full enjoyment of this movie. Original clips like the expatriation of Wolf Biermann are used to drive the plot. (I guess the majority of Germans wouldn't know of those things that happened in 1977.)

One can but laud the ability of this movie to being hilarious by just scratching along a very specific reality. And one could at the same time question the undertaking to do that 28 years later, and based on plots and scenes and a personage and language dialects taken from a very specific reality and most probably only working in exactly that reality.

The current rating of 5.5 is not realistic. Those unacquainted with the background will surely find this movie very artificial if not boring. I'd feel likewise, had I not acquired this background knowledge through some decades of exposure to this system. From this angle I might as well have given a 10.

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