|
1:30 PM-4:30 PM
Toni Erdmann (2016)
Film Screenings|Despite all his activities, Winfried Conradi, a retired music teacher, suffers from loneliness. His daughter, who’s pursuing a career abroad as a management consultant, is of particular discomfort to him. When Winfried's dog dies, he travels spontaneously to Bucharest to see Ines. Her father’s arrival, however, does little to please her: he immediately interferes in her life and work, embarrasses her with ridiculous disguises, and, if necessary, acts as a rude impostor.
-
Goethe-Institut Johannesburg, Johannesburg
- Price Free
What became of Germany’s 1968 student movement generation? Winfried Conradi, a retired music teacher, lives alone with his dog, while his daughter pursues her career as a management consultant abroad. Didn't his daughter’s education back then also aim for self-confident independence? Now it’s clear Ines no longer wants to know anything about him. Furthermore, his attempts to fight loneliness with activity are barely successful.
After his dog dies, Winfried travels spontaneously to Bucharest to see Ines, which doesn’t exactly please her. She suspects he’ll interfere with everything, and is shocked when her father declares he’s put aside four weeks for his visit. Restraint seems alien to him. Ines takes him to a reception at the US Embassy, but requests that, whatever the circumstances, he reject any invitation she might make to her boss for a drink afterwards. But there’s no dumb joke, nor embarrassment, from which Winfried will shy away: he’s a crafty fool who, with his crackpot ideas, actually fools the others. He also has what it takes to be a clever impostor – pretending to be Toni Erdmann, or sometimes a German ambassador, or the tennis partner of Ion Tiriac, Boris Becker’s legendary manager, or a successful businessman – and takes great pleasure in everything, whether the reckless disguises, a wild, lank wig, heavily protruding fangs, or a monstrous, hairy Kukeri costume, whose roots lie in Bulgarian tradition.
For Ines, the worst thing is that her father's pranks, which extend far into her workplace’s hierarchies, could stand in the way of her career, because sometimes she just finds him embarrassing. But this daughter is entirely capable of learning: in order to implement a dubious project to outsource a large Romanian company, she throws Winfried in as a German businessman, albeit without success. Together, the two visit the company's last oil drilling site; still caught up in his role as a German tycoon, Winfried accuses a worker of violating safety regulations, and is shocked by the consequences: the worker is summarily dismissed. On their way home, Ines accuses her father of being ‘green’. But she’s also learning from him how to be daring: provocatively, and at short notice, she declares that her birthday party, which she’s talking up within the company as a team-building exercise, will be a "nude party" – and even her boss gets involved. Winfried of course also turns up, dressed in a Kukeri costume as a giant, shaggy monster, but the sight of the naked guests swiftly makes him flee. Pursuing him in a bathrobe, Ines catches up with him, cries out "Papa!", and throws herself into the arms of the longhaired, faceless monster. It’s the father and daughter’s first truly tender moment.
"With his spontaneous and daring transformation, Winfried attempts to dissolve the old father-daughter relationship. Toni Erdmann is born of exasperation. Humour is often a solution to overcome something, and in this respect it’s always a way of getting rid of pain. The father is incapable of facing his daughter any other way. (...) With Toni, Winfried frees himself from this misery by making this radical offer. He only has his sense of humour as a weapon, and he begins to deploy it to the full. This results in a tougher game, and because Ines is also a tough character, he’s suddenly speaking a language she can understand." (Maren Ade)
Despite many ellipses, the director takes her time with her story, giving the film its outer calmness, in turn allowing the narrative to benefit from constant inner movements. In the end there’s a death, but it’s not the increasingly physically compromised Winfried who perishes, but his elderly mother, Ines’ grandmother. Father and daughter – she’s quit her job in Bucharest, and will travel to Singapore to work for a larger company - see each other again when they visit the funeral home. Then the members of the family - and there are, given Winfried's loneliness, a surprising number of them - meet at the deceased's house. Winfried and Ines examine countless old things that her grandma didn't want to throw away. Ines puts on her grandma's old-fashioned hat and goes out into the garden with her father. He disappears into the house to get a camera. The focus remains on the young woman. She seems lost in thought.
Film language: German with English subtitles
Comedy, Age restriction: 12
Awards:
Academy Awards 2017
After his dog dies, Winfried travels spontaneously to Bucharest to see Ines, which doesn’t exactly please her. She suspects he’ll interfere with everything, and is shocked when her father declares he’s put aside four weeks for his visit. Restraint seems alien to him. Ines takes him to a reception at the US Embassy, but requests that, whatever the circumstances, he reject any invitation she might make to her boss for a drink afterwards. But there’s no dumb joke, nor embarrassment, from which Winfried will shy away: he’s a crafty fool who, with his crackpot ideas, actually fools the others. He also has what it takes to be a clever impostor – pretending to be Toni Erdmann, or sometimes a German ambassador, or the tennis partner of Ion Tiriac, Boris Becker’s legendary manager, or a successful businessman – and takes great pleasure in everything, whether the reckless disguises, a wild, lank wig, heavily protruding fangs, or a monstrous, hairy Kukeri costume, whose roots lie in Bulgarian tradition.
For Ines, the worst thing is that her father's pranks, which extend far into her workplace’s hierarchies, could stand in the way of her career, because sometimes she just finds him embarrassing. But this daughter is entirely capable of learning: in order to implement a dubious project to outsource a large Romanian company, she throws Winfried in as a German businessman, albeit without success. Together, the two visit the company's last oil drilling site; still caught up in his role as a German tycoon, Winfried accuses a worker of violating safety regulations, and is shocked by the consequences: the worker is summarily dismissed. On their way home, Ines accuses her father of being ‘green’. But she’s also learning from him how to be daring: provocatively, and at short notice, she declares that her birthday party, which she’s talking up within the company as a team-building exercise, will be a "nude party" – and even her boss gets involved. Winfried of course also turns up, dressed in a Kukeri costume as a giant, shaggy monster, but the sight of the naked guests swiftly makes him flee. Pursuing him in a bathrobe, Ines catches up with him, cries out "Papa!", and throws herself into the arms of the longhaired, faceless monster. It’s the father and daughter’s first truly tender moment.
"With his spontaneous and daring transformation, Winfried attempts to dissolve the old father-daughter relationship. Toni Erdmann is born of exasperation. Humour is often a solution to overcome something, and in this respect it’s always a way of getting rid of pain. The father is incapable of facing his daughter any other way. (...) With Toni, Winfried frees himself from this misery by making this radical offer. He only has his sense of humour as a weapon, and he begins to deploy it to the full. This results in a tougher game, and because Ines is also a tough character, he’s suddenly speaking a language she can understand." (Maren Ade)
Despite many ellipses, the director takes her time with her story, giving the film its outer calmness, in turn allowing the narrative to benefit from constant inner movements. In the end there’s a death, but it’s not the increasingly physically compromised Winfried who perishes, but his elderly mother, Ines’ grandmother. Father and daughter – she’s quit her job in Bucharest, and will travel to Singapore to work for a larger company - see each other again when they visit the funeral home. Then the members of the family - and there are, given Winfried's loneliness, a surprising number of them - meet at the deceased's house. Winfried and Ines examine countless old things that her grandma didn't want to throw away. Ines puts on her grandma's old-fashioned hat and goes out into the garden with her father. He disappears into the house to get a camera. The focus remains on the young woman. She seems lost in thought.
Film language: German with English subtitles
Comedy, Age restriction: 12
Awards:
Academy Awards 2017
- Nominierung, Bester nicht-englischsprachiger Film
- Many more
Location
Goethe-Institut Johannesburg
119 Jan Smuts Avenue Parkwood
Johannesburg
2193
South Africa
119 Jan Smuts Avenue Parkwood
Johannesburg
2193
South Africa