Herr Lehmann
I caught Herr Lehmann the other night and it’s the kind of film that reminds you why German cinema used to matter—not because it’s trying hard, but because it doesn’t seem to care if anyone’s watching. There’s a joke early on about a Beck’s beer ad that made me laugh out loud, which is basically the whole vibe: sardonic, specific, the kind of humor that assumes you’re paying attention.
Christian Ulmen plays Lehmann, a journalist drifting through 1980s Berlin like a man who’s already seen the ending. The film just watches him move through the city—his apartment, bars, the newspaper office, conversations that go nowhere and everywhere at once. The Berlin in this feels real in a way most cinema Berlin doesn’t, all divided and precarious and full of people pretending they’re building something.
What gets me is that it’s funny in the way things are funny when someone’s actually observed them. Not joke construction, just the accuracy of how people talk to each other, how they fail at connection, the small indifferences that make up a life. Ulmen’s got that tired, sardonic thing down perfectly—the guy who wants out but also can’t leave.
There’s something circular about it that stays with you. Lehmann at the beginning and Lehmann at the end are basically the same person, and you realize that’s the point. Not depressing exactly, but honest in a way that feels rarer than it should be.