WER FRÜHER STIRBT, IST LÄNGER TOT by Marcus H. Rosenmüller
11-year-old Sebastian Schneider (Markus Krojer) lives in a small Bavarian village with his older brother and his widowed father Lorenz (Fritz Karl) who runs the local tavern. Sebastian is a real scullywag, and after accidentally killing the rabbits of the family, his brother Franz tells him that their mother died when Sebastian was born, and that Sebastian is responsible for her death.
Sebastian fears that together with his more than 2000 other unatoned sins, this is surely enough to condemn him into purgatory. And there are just two ways to avoid purgatory: to atone for his sins, or to achieve immortality.
Sebastian’s advisors are the regulars of his father’s inn, but while their pieces of advice are well-meant, they are more of the lowbrow kind and not always suited for an 11-year-old, leading amongst other misfortunes to Sebastian making an indecent proposal to his teacher Veronika Dorstreiter (Jule Ronstedt) and planning the murder of her husband when they suggest his father needs to find a new woman “with skills, brains, a nice ass and able to give him a ticking-off” and Sebastian thinks Veronika is the one and believes his dead mother gave her agreement.
Marcus Hausham Rosenmüller’s feature film debut is a “Heimatfilm” without the kitsch. Through Sebastian’s eyes, the audience experiences Bavarian country-life from the perspective of an 11-year-old catholic kid, a life of simple folks who lead a simple life, but care for each other, treat a kid just like a little adult and try to explain the facts of life and death in simple words. To become immortal, you must either create great music, or you must reproduce. And people must die because otherwise “there would be not enough room at the regular’s table”. Unlike the “typical” German film, produced and set in the Protestant north of Germany, the setting here is Catholic, with god-fearing, sensual countryfolk speaking in regional dialect instead of the world-savvy, puritan intellectual townspeople of the north.
Old-fashioned but all the more refreshing, maybe a bit too long with 104 minutes running time, WER FRÜHER STIRBT, IST LÄNGER TOT is an admirably politically incorrect pleasure.
Wer früher stirbt, ist länger tot – Movie Trailer
