Wednesday, February 01, 2006

The Edukators (screenplay by Hans Weingartner)

It has been a while since I’ve encountered a very sensible and strong screenplay. This year, The Edukators which happens to be the German Film Critics Best Film is my early favorite for 2006. Here are some of its great and amazing points:

This is a conversation of Jan (Daniel Bruhl), a young idealist and Hardenberg (Burghart Klaussner), a rich corporate capitalist and their individual ideas on how the world works…

Hardenberg: We live in a democracy, I don’t have to justify why I own certain things, I paid for them.

Jan: Wrong, we live in a capitalist dictatorship; you stole everything you possess… It’s the basic rule of the system, suck others dry, it stops them from reacting.

Hardenberg: That’s not true, sure things need improvement. Environmental protection, raising producer prices, but the system won’t change. The nature of man is to be better than others, in every group, a leader emerges quickly. Plus, more people are happy when buying something new.

Jan: Happy? Think they are happy Hardenberg? Look around, get out of the company car, walk on the street. Anyone look happy or more like of a scared animal. Look into their living rooms, all glued to the TV, listening to chic zombies, speaking of a happiness long gone. Drive around town, you’ll see all the filth, the overcrowding, the masses in the department store. Up and down like robots in the escalator, nobody knows anybody. They think that happiness is an inch away, but it is unreachable because you stole it. That’s how it is, you know perfectly well. But I have news for you executive, the system is overheated. We’re just the forerunners; your time is almost over. Swim in your shit technology but the others are full of rage. The rage of children living in slums, watching American action films, that’s one part let’s see. Mental illness is rising; serial killers, shattered souls, senseless violence. You can’t sedate them with game shows and shopping. The antidepressants won’t work forever either. The people have had enough of your shit system.

Hardenberg: I admit some of what you say is true, but I am the wrong scapegoat. I play the games but I didn’t make the rules.

Jan: It is not who invented the gun, but who pulls the trigger.