Really, this is the best performance of a German actress ever! (Not counting Ingrid Bergman, although her mother was born in Kiel... well...) And contrary to what everybody else says, the non-animated parts of this film are absolutely fabulous in their.lampooning of the aesthetics of the.average German film production at the time (i.e. Adult material). And the high cultural references couldn't have been much better either: Schopenhauer on marriage (halved rights, doubled duties), Rumpelstilzchen's sideway glance, poking fun at the origin of the wedding march by singing the text (two more lines would have been even better though, because "Streiter der Tugend" and "Zierde der Jugend" would have been hardly ever more fitting) and... well... when Rumpelstilzchen returns... I mean, apart from having written a name that only she (thinks she) knows, does she not come as a thief, exposing the shame of the poor guy who doesn't hold fast to his clothes? This is all completely brilliant, as is the.pastor's casting and car, even the church on its hill and the beech.grove where Rumpelstilzchen brews her stuff, I'm loving all of it, yes, and after the somewhat stupid "Alf?" guess, the "Steffi Graf" stab had me laughing out loud again. No really, completely brilliant throughout.
As for the animated parts, I guess I liked the "soccer" game and the hospital stay best, the construction site explosion worst. The best part of the visit at Frau Hansen's was the way Röhrich and Werner were treated in contrast, but it's all good.
Well, and if you don't understand the humour: It's quite simple. You have a bunch of somewhat limited people and yet with the right added ingredient of.thoughtlessness it'll turn out interesting enough. Or differently put: In the absence of an intellectual life the resulting blunders will provide the necessary food for thought, a.k.a. "What you haven't got in your head, you've got to have in your legs."
