GERMAN FILM FESTIVAL: This mildly diverting but mostly likeable light comedy has a classic 'fish out of water’ scenario. Set in the early '80s it’s about a group of 'orange people’, followers of Baghwan philosophy, who opt to move to an ultra conservative village in Bavaria in order to set up a therapy centre.
Much misunderstanding, suspicion and confusion follows; the local folk believe the orange people to be communists, Satanists, or sex-mad freaks (depending on who is doing the complaining).
Since the movie is an equal opportunity satire the orange people are not without foibles and human frailties like envy, arrogance and ignorance, even if the screenplay by Ursula Gruber (herself, a former 'orange child’) cultivates most of them as sincerely spiritual.
It’s a set-up that promises all kinds of exciting possibilities; but the plot operates at about the level of a TV dramedy and its philosophical underpinnings are equally anodyne and risk-free. This is a movie in love with the idea of family and order, and enraptured by its own willingness to uplift. Still, within its conservative contours there’s quite an intriguing and engaging human comedy.
The action is narrated by 12-year-old Lili (Amber Bongard, in the movie’s best performance). She’s the eldest child of Amrita (Petra Schmidt-Schaller), who sees motherhood as very much a part-time thing and enlightenment a full-time gig. Amrita is a buzzing, sexy character, who seems to have put the 'F’ into 'free-spirit’; here she’s the poster-girl for the orange people’s attitude to all things sensual. In the voice-over Lili affects an ironic detachment. Still, as the film’s 'I want my family to be normal so I can fit in’ plot she takes every slight, embarrassment and awkward situation as a body blow.
The script, not surprisingly, is a study in contrasts; the crazy swirl of communal living with its food-free zone pantry and feverish discussions over what’s best for everybody (the kids, like 'normal’ families, don’t get a say; a nice joke that)"¦ Meanwhile, Lili visits a neighbourhood family who feeds her sausage and sauerkraut in a solemn mood of obliging smugness.
As the movie progresses subplots surface, mostly in order to make Lili’s desire seem less like teen angst and more like human desire to adapt to one’s surroundings; there are cross-cultural love affairs, attempts to discredit the orange people, and a guru sets out to seduce Amrita. Only once though, does the film affect an emotional character that breaks away from its cartoony ambience (even its sparkling, too-rich-to-be-true cinematography creates a goofiness around the characters). That’s when Amrita makes a sad and belated admission of devotion to her kids (Lili has a younger brother Fabian, Bela Baumann). It’s like the film has suddenly morphed into a drop-dead serious psychodrama. Later, it pays off in the film’s unexpectedly chaotic climax, which features a brawl and a lot of emotional venting and goes a long way to redeem the film’s otherwise 'cutesy’ tone.
But all the way through, Gruber and director Marcus H. Rosenmüller try to manage the material as some kind of all-purpose fable about 'our’ need for order and our urge to break away from it. As far as conventional wisdoms go, that’s an enduring one. Though for some it might serve as more of a wishlist, in life and, of course, especially in the movies.
