Year of the Arts
Below is a short-list of this year's major motion pictures in the Ruhr.
The Great Machine
In an oppressive future, all people are reduced to cogs in the Great Machine a massive city where all work, all play, all life is mediated through interacting with a single interconnected city-sized machine. The calm of this society is disturbed however when a small band of workers discover that malfunctions in the Great Machine are repaired by a secret order of mechanics who are obedient to the mysterious Master of the Great Machine. The inhabitants of this social wasteland rebel when the small band of workers reveal the secretive ruling class. Together everyone destroys the Great Machine and hang the Master, reverting back to simpler ways.
Miracle
Standing atop a tall building on Christmas Eve, the district doctor almost jumps to his certain death, before an angel intervenes. The doctor had just lost an envelope containing funds from the central government that would allow his clinic, situated in the most disease-struck part of the city, to continue operating. In reality the envelope was stolen by an unscrupulous black market merchant from Bavaria, who has offered to pay for the continuation of the clinic
if the virtuous doctor will not report crime in the district. The angel takes the doctor on a journey through an alternative reality, where the doctor was never born showing him how fortunate everyone around him has been that he is so virtuous. The doctor returns to town whereupon he is greeted by a crowd of locals willing to donate to save the clinic.
Klaus Neumann
The man and the myth were so intertwined, few saw Klaus Neumann as anything other than the famous architect who built the tallest tower in the world. Only after his mysterious death does a young journalist take interest in the private life of Mr. Neumann, whos friends, colleagues and ex-lovers present different pictures of a simple man making his suspicious death even more confusing. The story flashbacks to various points in Mr. Neumanns life, from his childhood to his marriages to the German Civil War and repeatedly to the planning and construction of his famous tower. The journalist concludes nobody will ever know why Mr. Neumann died; however in reality he died of a simple accident he, like you or I, are notwithstanding fame or stories spun by others, all the same, all fragile.
The Hedgehog and the Fox
One day a giant Hedgehog begins wreaking havoc on the citizens of Germany, destroying major cities and crushing all in its wake. The high command of the Collective Republic get together and devise a plan to destroy the giant Hedgehog, throwing the entire military might of Germany at the monstrous beast. At first foreign capitalists try to use this disaster as an opportunity to invade, but when they begin marching onwards the Hedgehog proves disastrous for their armies the combined forces of Germany, France, Britain and Russia prove no match for the Hedgehog. Then a giant Fox appears, and the leaders of the Collective Republic convince the Fox to destroy the Hedgehog and protect Germany this succeeds and the Fox safeguards Germany forevermore.
Once Upon a Time
A collection of animated vignettes, Once Upon a Time features German folk tales redone for the modern age. Stories include: a variant of Little Red Riding Hood where the grandma turns out to be a snake-oil salesman in disguise, and the Bad Wolf and Red Riding Hood team up to expose him; Hansel and Gretel, who are fat, capitalist adolescents turned into candy by the witch of the forest. Etc.
Handsome Hugh
Following the silly antics of Handsome Hugh, a rough construction worker, the film is mostly slapstick and dramatic irony. Hugh repeatedly ruins construction of each project he is assigned, badly operating cranes, motor vehicles, and even shovels. Meanwhile Hugh falls in love with a bakers daughter, and miscommunicates with her in hilarious ways, for example in one instance a friend miswrites Hughs dictation (Hugh is illiterate), causing the love interest to read the opposite of the intended message. Hilarious.