A small town in the GDR celebrates the opening of a supermarket. Next door, an old house collapses. In the rubble is an old Marxist brochure, dating back to the beginnings of the GDR. Jadup, who is now mayor, had once given it to Boel. At that time, Boel had been raped and then disappeared. Her assailant was never convicted.

In Wickenhausen in Märkisches Land, times are changing. During the official opening of a new supermarket, an old house collapses next door. In the rubble is a brochure: “The Development of Socialism”, with a dedication from Jadup to Boel. Nowadays, Jadup is the mayor, and he is so conventional that everyone knows in advance what he will say in his official speeches. The brochure from the early days of the GDR gives him food for thought. Memories of the past come flooding back. When Jadup was still a lad, he liked to hang out in the church steeple, from which point he had to keep watch over the town, like a medieval sentry. One day Boel appeared: a refugee girl who felt drawn to the boy. Boel was then raped and disappeared, seemingly for good. Today, no one seems to know what happened to her, not even her mother, who now lives as an outsider in Wickenhausen. Her attacker was never convicted and is probably still living amongst them.
An inscrutable stranger turns up in Wickenhausen and starts snooping around. Perhaps he is really only after antiques, which he can sell for a profit in the capital; but perhaps he is in fact only there to spy on people. In school they set up the “Young Historians Club”, which is dominated by members of the Free German Youth, the GDR’s communist youth movement. The pupils have to research what their parents did as part of the socialist movement. Jadup tells them, “I can’t tell you what keeps me awake at night!” At the same time, the old boy Unger wants to write an official history of the town but he makes no progress with it because he cannot find a starting point. Jadup’s thoughts continually turn back to Boel, in the form of flashbacks. He remembers how he taught her to read; how they argued over her at the sawmill; and how he learnt of her old wives’ tale of how to get rid of warts.
It becomes increasingly clear to Jadup that the world back then wasn’t perfect; moreover, that it still is not. He appears more and more irritable. During the preparations for the town’s 800th anniversary, he encounters difficulties with the officials from the local council. In the meantime, he verbally attacks a shop assistant in the new supermarket due to the lack of products, although delivery problems are not her fault. The discrepancy between what was promised and reality is too great. The historian Unger explains that his town history will not begin 800 years ago, but rather after 1945.
Jadup has changed. His next speech is no longer comprised of the same tired phrases: according to him, life is not a question which can be answered, but rather, “there are always new questions. But asking questions has become controversial!”

JADUP AND BOEL was banned in 1981, shortly before it was due to be premiered. It was only released to the public in 1988. As with many other films which were outlawed in socialist countries, no one really knows the reasons why. “This is one of those films which was so rare in the history of the DEFA (the state-owned East German film studio). It’s real and metaphorical, direct and never naturalistic, it’s critical but not polemical, it’s hard and tender.” Or so wrote Peter Ahrens, a.k.a. Klaus Wischnewski, in the 13th December 1988 edition of “The World Stage”. In “Sonntag” on the 26th June 1988, Fred Gehler described JADUP AND BOEL as Simon’s most complex film. “The seriousness of the issue is always alienated and variegated by the use of fantasy. There are wonderfully surreal intervals, ironic asides, ambiguity and mischievousness. Thankfully, the rhetorical and didactic tone is frequently interrupted, the missionary zeal integrated into the story and never centre-stage”.

Production Period

1980/1988

Production Year

1981

color

color

Aspect Ratio

1:1,66

Duration

Feature-Length Film (61+ Min.)

Type

Feature Film

Genre

Literary Adaptation, Drama

Topic

Violence, Love, GDR, Migration / Flight / Exile

Available Media

DVD

Original Version

German (de)

DVD

Subtitles

German (full), English (en), French (fr), Spanish (es), Portuguese (Brazil) (pt)