SUCK ME SHAKESPEER
Germany, 2013, 110 minutes, Colour.
Elyas M' Barej, Karoline Herfurth.
Directed by Bora Dagtekin.
Not the most attractive of titles! In fact, the German title was more direct: Fuck me Goethe - the Shakespeare a concession to English-speaking audiences.
Film viewers outside Germany may be very surprised to find that it was the biggest money spinner at the German box office in 2014. Maybe it could serve as a revelation about German humour!
In fact, the basic plot is fairly predictable. A recalcitrant prisoner, who turns up at education evenings solely because the hot chocolate is free, is released, contacts his girlfriend who is a stripper in order to find where she has buried his money. She has the coordinates on her phone – only for them to find that a building is now on the site where she thought there were simply laying pipes!. He decides to apply for a job of caretaker at the school so that he can have access to the area beneath the building and drill in order to find his money.
The school principal is harassed, a young teacher is transferred to the most loutish class, feels humiliated and frustrated in her teaching ambitions and the principle asks the ex--prisoner to take over. The students have all kinds of elaborate practical jokes, of an injurious nature for the teachers including the ex-prisoner.
As the film progresses, the new teacher lays down the law though he has shared a lot of the students’ previous attitudes and is pretty slovenly himself, initially couldn’t-care-less. He is also attracted to the put-upon teacher.
After an elaborate series of mishaps in school as well is his drilling underneath the school, there is a change of heart in many of the students, an affirmation of some of their abilities, the expected progress in behaviour and attitudes of the ex-prisoner as well as the students and the staff.
Perhaps some of the mayhem has a humorous appeal to the German audiences, and perhaps the dialogue is wittier in the original language than in the subtitles.
Whatever the case, two years later, there was Suck me Shakespeer 2.
