HOTEL LUX

Germany, 2011, 102 minutes, Colour.
Michael Bully Herbig, Jurgen Vogel, Thekler Reuten, Valery Grishko.
Directed by Leander Haussmann.

Hotel Lux is a euphemism for the rather dingy hotel in Moscow 1939. The film opens with a voiceover of the central character, a cabaret comedian from Berlin, Hans (Michael Bully Herbig) perched on the Red Star shining from the hotel roof. That is certainly different. So are the flashbacks when we see him and his Communist friend, Meyer (Jurgen Vogel) performing their act, a send-up of both Hitler and Stalin. Well, perhaps it is not so different insofar as many in the audience will think Mel Brooks and The Producers. I think Mel Brooks would be quite a fan of this film – especially since it veers into the territory charted by Jack Benny during World War II in To Be or Not to Be, mocking Hitler and the Nazis, a film that Mel Brooks and his wife, Anne Bancroft, remade in the 1980s.

As the film goes on and Hans grows a moustache, he could easily pass for a young Mel Brooks.

It is 1933 and, we remember from Cabaret, the night clubs in Berlin catered to a wide range of clients (including the Nationalist Socialist police) and it was still possible to imitate Hitler, his look, his voice and his mannerisms quite freely. That we are familiar with. It is the satire on Stalin that is new – and tellingly effective. Meyer is Hitler, Hans is Stalin.

It couldn’t last too long as ideology tightens in Germany and some anti-Semitic routines are introduced. Meyer is a Communist with his friend, , and they go underground. Hans survives until 1938 when the friendly dresser at the club gets him a fake passport. He is on his way to Hollywood. Well, not exactly. He has to escape in a hurry and finds himself in Moscow where he is mistaken for Hitler’s personal astrologer whose passport he has.

We don’t see much satire on Stalin on our screens, so this film is welcome. Hans becomes Stalin’s adviser (meeting in the toilet with the tap running for security) and finds himself with many privileges, though the KGB want to expose him. Meyer turns up again as does and Hans is in love with her.

How will they manage? How did Hans find himself stranded on the Red Star? That is part of the enjoyment of this comic excursion back into a very serious past.
1. An interesting and entertaining satire? The targets? Sensitivities – German? Russian? The period of Hitler? Of Stalin? The satire in the past? The present? The effect?

2. The Mel Brooks style, Hans and his looking like a young Mel Brooks? Mel Brooks’ tone?

3. The use of satire, farce, parody? The skills in performance, dialogue, song and dance?

4. Berlin in the early 30s, the cabarets and clubs? Audiences accepting the performances? The visits of the police? The anti-Semitic tones? The fights? The applause? The mocking of Hitler, his look, speech? Stalin and his appearance? Issues of Germany and Russia in the 1930s?

5. Frida in the audience, Meyer and his response? Hans and his falling in love? The underground, their both disappearing?

6. Hans, staying in Germany, the changes in Germany, the owner of the cabaret and the pressures from the authorities, his being Jewish? Jewish humour – and the rise of anti-Semitic jokes? The performer and his jealousy, fighting? The audiences, acceptance? The closing of the club? The need to escape? Frida’s reappearance?

7. Hans’s Hollywood ambitions, the letter from the agent? The cabaret dresser and his help, the passport? His being shot? Hans and his identity, assuming the identity of the astrologer, going to Moscow?

8. The opening of the film, Hans on top of the Russian star, his explanations, the flashbacks? Resuming the plot?

9. Hans, his fears, the concierge at the hotel, the demands? The KGB? Their expecting the astrologer? The assumptions about Hans, his room, taking him to Stalin?

10. The portrait of Stalin, in the toilet, the secrecy, running the taps to avoid recordings? Stalin and his interest in the stars, admiration for Hitler’s astrologer? The range of the sessions, Hans and his skill in surviving, giving the right answers? Stalin’s assumptions? Hans and his growing influence? The medal, the status, his meals? People and their admiration? The truth, the KGB, wanting to arrest him? The real astrologer and his arrival, his being taken away as a fake?

11. The final visit to Stalin, Stalin saying that he knew all the time, yet finding Hans useful, his being used?

12. Frida and Meyer and their reappearance in Moscow? The dangers? The policy of returning Germans from Russia? Hans, his helping the people at the hotel, the corridor chases, finding himself on the top of the star?

13. The arrest, the photos, Hans pretending to be Stalin, his Hitler card and Meyer saying he was his best friend? The arrest of Frida? Imprisonment? Her not confessing?

14. The situation, the secrecy, the arrival of Ribbentrop in Moscow? The pretence that Hitler had arrived, the disguises, shaving Stalin’s head? Frida as pilot – and their escape? Stalin and his head being shaved? The mix-ups with the bureaucracy, the military, the escape?

15. The fact of the pact between Russia and Germany in August 1939?

16. The final credits, the letter to the agent, the Hollywood icons appearing on the screen?

17. How effective a satire at the beginning of the 21st century?