Zur Sache Schätzchen (1968) watch online HD

To contradict an earlier user comment, this movie is to me pretty much the opposite of "tedious avant-garde". I mean it's avant-garde in the good sense -- innovative but without foot-stepping some dogma that has been decreed by the Cahiers du cinéma -- and it certainly isn't tedious. Spils and Enke (the director and the male hero of the movie, who made this movie as a real-life couple) have done an exceptional, almost documentarian, job of capturing the mood of the times by condensing it into several outstanding characters.

If you have become used to the established Hollywood version of "The Sixties", where it's the Fifties in one scene, and then, bang!, the Sixties, cue "Turn! Turn! Turn!" from The Byrds and roll out the flowery shirts and nappy hairdos, then you're in for a surprise. It's the revolution, all right, but our heroes wear long-sleeved buttoned shirts, properly combed hair, the Vietnam war seems to be a hundred years in the offing, and the banjo-whistely soundtrack would have made Jimi Hendrix run for his tour bus.

Munich-Schwabing, where most of this movie was shot, had been Germany's political hotbed for some years, and in 1967 "the action" had just moved on to other cities. You can smell a whiff of the eternal Bavarian revolutionary credo in the air: "A bissl was geht allerwei!" -- which may be instantly congenial but is, unfortunately, completely untranslatable.

By the way, my favorite scenes are when the different characters enter the elevator and meet its inhabitant, an obscure studenty character who apparently lives there, and spends his time reading, writing, drinking coffee and smoking. Slightly embarrassed and nervous glances are exchanged, no explanation is ever given.

Since I last saw this movie (on TV), some years have gone by. While other people in other places tried to set up a student´s revolution, May Spils and Werner Enke decided to make a little movie in the summer-lit Munich. There, a sympathetic good-for-nothing is hanging about and constantly producing one-line jokes. Of course, a girl passes by as well... Not much of a story, but this film seems to have been made at the right time to catch some weightless moments in the sixties. The characters move about aimlessly, but with the certainty that life is precisely here and now. A not-at-all typical german movie, I like this one very much, especially for its complete lack of ambition and the ease it radiates, which now has a touch of nostalgia. Sometimes, fortunately, film can catch and preserve the taste of a moment. In German, "zur Sache, Schätzchen" has become a saying.

"Zur Sache, Schätzchen" or "Go for It, Baby" is a West German German-language movie from 1968 and easily the most known work by writer and director May Spils. His co-writer here is Werner Enke, the man who also plays the lead character and won a German Film Award for it. Also for him, it is the most known work. And the film is also a contender for Uschi Glas' most known work as she was nominated for a German Film Award too. She was in her early 20s here and almost half a century later, she is still really famous in Germany and a successful actress. And some German film fans may find other familiar faces. The film is in black-and-white and runs for 75 minutes only. To me, it seemed a bit similar to the French artistic black-and-white films from back then, even if I must say I was not really convinced. It is always tough if a film lacks a plot completely and is basically a collection of impressions only, almost a road movie to some extent. I must say Enke definitely elevates the material and it would have been worse without. But all in all, I still found it too bland and uninteresting and the tense final scene did not save it, but seemed almost a bit desperate, so people would still remember it despite all the boredom from previously. And I always thought Glas was not a very talented actress, but really more charismatic than with lots of range, and this film cannot alter my opinion. She is clearly inferior to her male co-lead. I did not find it a good watch and give it a thumbs-down. Not recommended.

I had heard so much about this production that I decided to purchase it at a local charity auction. Now, after over five months, I finally got to watch it. Alas, I have to conclude: Bullshit! Don't expect the slightest trace of any sort of coherent dramaturgy, let alone interesting characters. All you get to see is a bunch of pseudo-provoking, self-congratulatory youngsters stumbling through this tedious flick while posing as unbelievable, wannabe-frivolous good-for-nothings. In case you're attracted to "Gib Gas, ich will Spass" featuring German pop star Nena, go ahead and give it a try. Otherwise, hit your favorite bar and meet your friends over a beer.

This film propagates "Imagination", unfortunately it is sorely lacking in that very department. (Well, no surprise really, this being Germany...)

A goat child is being kidnapped; an old geezer is riding the waves in the brook behind the house; yes, the obtrusive revolver will be fired in the end (no, it won't, it will just trigger another gun); and in a police station Uschi will do her famous chaste striptease down to her white corsage underwear (might be a straight jacket or an armour). No sex in 1968. Not until the lecherous old geezer performs his homemade sea shanty to the bass section accompaniment of an accordion will we receive the present of a moment. A moment of presence.

Have you noticed that the boys in the films of that period are all useless dawdlers, dilly-dallying and niggling, wasting their days with tepid pranks and vapid one-liners? The girls on the other hand are always good girls, they have parents, some education, an orderly life and plans for more of the same. If boy and girl get together she'll provide the livelihood and he'll provide the amusement. (If you wanna call a flip book "amusement", that is. I do.) Now, despite being ineffective weaklings (I almost read "wankers"), these boys seem to exert an irresistible spell on the females, who gladly take the opportunity for a diversion on any sunny afternoon. "Oh well, alright", the girls say, handing over their cars and nearly throwing away their lives. (Yet they won't forget their orderly background which they will eventually return to.)

Where the Graduate still had a direction, a vector - out, out of the parental housing - and this direction of impact (expact?) drove the film, Martin here is already released from all enclosures of discipline, discharged and free to drift aimlessly through the 80 minutes of Schätzchen.

80 minutes that made me check my watch repeatedly. Tedious? Yes. Free-wheeling? light hearted? Well, yes, insofar as this film, much like it's main protagonist, finds no footing in the real, wasting it's time with lame japes and half-baked caricatures set in a nondescript town (Munich? It could be any place), randomly breezing by, without a chance to touch us. (And the "Imagination"? That has been driven out of the country /murdered 30 years before.)

The main impression Schätzchen leaves behind is that of a lukewarm reproduction of it's French and British influences, trying too hard to evoke the sparkles and the wit of it's predecessors and coming away with something a bit unimaginative and "bieder"... a German film.

I graciously give it 5 Stars for being a historical document. (And for drawing the dawdling boys less abrasive than in the other films of the period - that indeed was a welcome variation of the theme.)