It was pretty much taken as read a while back that Cascada would win the German National Final.
Since Cascada's pretty well known in Europe, I think this is going forward as a favourite now. I've never been to Germany, so I'm cool with that. It's currently 10/1 with Norway, Denmark and Armenia in the lead. I've already said I don't want a Danish win, and Norway's song bores me. So Germany it is.
This song is Euphoria without the artsy pretensions, though.
I'd never heard of this before which puts my Eurovision nerdery to shame. So, how did I find a German-language regional mini Eurovision?
In many ways it seemed like a national final for Eurovision. I'm surprised it's not staged later to fit in with the selection for that, but I guess that would take away from the German element of it. If it seems like Germany's Eurovision entries are all a bit Snow Patrol or Lily Allen/Kate Nash for your liking, and miss a good german-language entry (Austria did not provide this year), this is your show.
Opening to the Eurovision theme, and followed by Stefan Raab's 2000 entry, it's not surprise to find that this is the project of Stefan Raab. Oh Stefan, you'll never leave us! Will you? WILL YOU?
The songs themselves seemed very much like Eurovision entries, but without the more confining rules that make Eurovision entries somewhat formulaic (6 stage members, 3 minutes long, etc.) As I said, it has a national final vibe, which is probably why it seems a lot less showy than the Eurovision, which has masses of money thrown in. Or it's like 90s Eurovision, where songs seemed more song-like, and there weren't ridiculous stage props and costume changes all over the place.
The voting I find hilarious. Each of the 16 regions of Germany votes in
the same way as eurovision with one crucial difference: they can give
themselves the 12 points. Which basically means the loser gets to know
that they really suck and no one likes them if they end with less than
12 points -- your own region didn't even like you!
Like Eurovision, there was the usual advantage of performing last, with the winner performing last and second place performing second last. I preferred the second place, Laing, but 'electronica lady sound' is probably more my thing than German Eminem singing for his homies in the Rhine Valley*
Second Place: Laing, 'Morgens immer müde', Saxony
Winner: Xavas, 'Schau nicht mehr zurück' Baden Wurttemberg
*Baden Wurttemberg might well be a real hard place of guns, hos and a hard street life. I don't know, never been there.
Other notables: Saarland's Die Orsons and Cro. 'Horst and Monika' -- Thanks to the video, this song probably the one that makes sense without a knowledge of German.
Vierkanttretlager, 'Fotoalbum' -- I dunno, I just like this one.
Worst songs: Johanna Zeul from Saxony-Anhalt and Cris Cosmo from Hesse. Johanna was just poor (I can't find decent live performances, but the full show is linked at the top) while Cris Cosmo clearly thinks he's in a more exciting band.
I have to admit, whenever BBC Four and iPlayer list a foreign film, a lot of the time, I'm going to watch it.
Sometimes though, I shouldn't bother. Yella, a 2007 German film, is probably the dullest, most predictable thing I've ever seen, which, I'll spoil it for you now because it's too dull to care about. She's been dead the whole time.
At the start of the film her possessive ex-husband drives her off a bridge in a car. She swims ashore and after that her life seems a bit weird. BECAUSE SHE'S OBVIOUSLY DEAD ALREADY! Honestly, since The Sixth Sense, this is such an obvious twist where you see some sort of fatal accident that doesn't seem to have killed someone where it should have. And even this revelation is presented so boringly that you just think, 'what. are we done? Was that it?'
The film before this revelation is so achingly dull. She spends the film doing various accounting stuff with some guy who is a corporate conman, in a sense. The stuff he's doing is way too fucking dull. The film plods around bare corporate offices, bare hotel rooms, bare cars, bare landscapes. It's so constantly bare.
Though it did make me think, if purgatory is wandering around a german techno-industrial landscape talking about corporate sales and accounting, then, my god, i'd better commit some massive sins so that I will never be stuck in such a place. Urgh, just skip right on from this one.
It's Oscars day today and in a departure from Eurovision stuff, and as a result of Eurovision exhaustion right now, I thought I'd do a list of 10 European films to watch, for when you get tired of Eurovision, and need something other than dodgy lyrics about jokers, smokers, the Jagger Mick and other such things. I've tried to pick from a spread of Europe, not just 10 french or german films. Please recommend me more foreign films, in the comments here if you like. I totally want some comments!
1: Once, Ireland, 2007
This is a semi-musical about two not-very-remarkable people in Dublin who both want to make music and end up sorta in love, except that she's already married to a Czech who is moving to Ireland soon, and he's off to chase down his girlfriend who scarpered to London some time back. Anyway, it's very sweet, unglamorous and fairly realistic. When you watch Ireland's recent Eurovision entries, and their total failure at being modern, I wonder why they've never looked at Marketa and Glen from this film and thought 'throw them some money and get them on the Eurovision stage.' They got a freaking Oscar for Best Song! Ireland does have musical talent!
2: No Man's Land, Bosnia, 2001
A straightforward film set in a 1990s no mans land area between the bosnians and the serbians where one of them is placed on a land mine, and it all goes a bit philosophical about war, life, death, and such things for a while before everyone gets killed. The ending is massively depressing.
3: The Baader Meinhof Complex, Germany, 2008
This is an interesting, if perhaps flawed and not technically amazing, film about the rise and fall of 1970s German terrorist group the Red Army Faction. What's especially interesting about it is probably what a bunch of absolute wankers they seemed to be.
4: Anna M, France, 2007
If you ever saw the twee/cutesy Audrey Tautou film He Loves Me He Loves Me Not, where she has erotomania and stalks a doctor guy she imagines herself in love with, then Anna M is the darker, sinister version of that, with less narrative tricks that don't hold up on rewatching. This has a suicidal librarian and a somber and ugly physiotherapist, not a sweet pretty art student who can whimsically hide her tablets behind a wardrobe and a thematically-linked young handsome heart doctor.
5 Closely Observed Trains, Czech Republic, 1968
I came across this film in university when I had to read the book. It's more linear than the book, about a lad who works in a rural train station, who attempts suicide after he can't go the whole way with his girl in the time of the German occupation of the Czech Republic (or whatever it was back then, I lose track).
6 Control, UK, 2007
When people think of European films, they think of Foreign Language films. Since Ireland's here, I suppose it's only fair to include a good British film that has a Europe vibe about it anyway, being about a band whose post-punk style has its roots in 70s German rock, and was directed by Dutch photographer Anton Corbjin.
7 In Bruges, 2008, Ireland, in a sense...
I don't care what it officially says, I'm calling this one an Irish film. Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Martin Mcdonagh. It's an Irish film, whatever the title says. And I'm trying to make ten on my list. It's set in Bruges, that's in Belgium, that's in Europe. It totally counts. I need to see more foreign films.
8 Jar City, Iceland, 2006
Why does that pregnant junkie daughter look familiar? Oh, it's Silvia Night! Guess the Eurovision rejection really did hit her hard. This film is basically a Scandinavian crime drama, about some lowlife found murdered and connected with a weird genetic brain disease that only four people have. It's got lots of shots of Iceland that make you think 'oooohh, pretty' and a particularly notable scene where the detective eats a sheeps eat from a takeaway, Google says it is a dish called svid . Probably better than going to a dodgy burger van, mind.
9 Tilsammans, Sweden, 2000
Fucking hippies, man.
10 Three Colours: White French/Polish, 1994
The Three Colours trilogy is one of those default first-year film student things to watch. I never saw them till years later when a friend gave me Blue as a gift. I wasn't impressed. White, however, is quite good, and probably the only one of the three worth sticking with. The plot is a slightly off comedy about a Polish guy whose French wife dumps him because he's no good in bed (I think?) and he goes back to Poland with a guy who offers him some money to kill him, then he becomes successful in business and sets up his ex-wife as a criminal.
Honorable Mentions: Disco Pigs (Ireland), Bjarnfredarson (Iceland), Fucking Amal (Sweden), Goodbye Lenin, The Lost Honour of Katarina Blum, Volver, Persepolis -- Marjane Sartrapi's French-Iranian, so it counts,
Though it doesn't mean much, you're the most stable country in Europe right now. You hosted last year's eurovision. WHY DOESN'T YOUR LIVEFEED WORK PROPERLY!
My god, this would have been an agonising show to watch. Oh, how they talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, oh hey, songs!
The winner?
He has that charisma of X Factor type winners. That being, fuck all!
This is all just a bit too falsely heartfelt to me. Look, there's a plonking piano, that means he's sad. Look, there's a plaintive wailing, repetitive chorus. Oh, can't you feel the emotion!!!! This means it's probably a winner. This means i want to hit my head against a wall!
Still, I don't want to murder him. I mean, he doesn't send me into a homicidal rage, he doesn't look like a total dickface! I could permit his existence. I mean, 26 songs, there are always going to have to be songs for toilet breaks, drinks refills and such.
So far, I don't know what Eurovision entries I like. They all seem a bit blah to me. I must be ill. Or nothing amazing has turned up yet.
As the Eurovision has gotten bigger and more expensive so has the staging for a lot of the songs, with more technical stuff going on. It's the stuff everyone remembers from the show afterwards -- the conehead unicyclist, the robot biker woman, the robot, the turkey in the trolley, yet, strangely these things have never really made winners. I'm really boring, and I hope that the most ridiculous staging elements will disappear from the Eurovision. They're becoming cliched now, like changing costume halfway through the song (Croatia 2011 have surely killed that trick now). So I'd like to dedicate a moment, in this crazed nationals season to the most over-the-top, and completely unnecessary, and probably detrimental, Eurovision stagings.
I miss when ESCToday did these sorts of lists... Sigh.
10 Boxing Ring, Armenia 2011
I actually thought this was more of the song than it is watching the video now, but it's still so stupid. What does any of this have to do with boxing?
9: The wind woman thing, Belarus 2009
This might be a costume thing, I'm unsure, just go with it. When I saw this the first time I couldn't decide if it was intentional, or if some poor backing dancer's dress had taken too much wind machine and she'd gotten stuck in the whole thing and couldn't get out. This never got to the final, so we never got to see. Sigh.
8: Big gaudy heart seat, Greece 2008.
Actually, I hate this song in every way. It's tacky, too pink it's unnecessarily Greek, she rips half her dress off to reveal... slightly less dress underneath. She sings about not wanting to give a guy her secret combination despite the fact that the whole of Europe is close to seeing all of her secrets if she opens her legs again. Urgh, and people liked this. I hate people. Why does she need to have some prom float heart as well? Hasn't the message of the song already come across by now. It just goes and makes the whole thing much more tacky and awful.
7: Dita Von Teese on a sofa, Germany, 2009.
You know, all those bits of furniture and stuff don't get on the stage by themselves. There's a bunch of stage hands and managers and people running around getting this stuff on and off quickly. Do you think they ever stop and think 'What was the point of that?' What was the point of having Dita Von Teese there in the background taking a few items of clothing off? What is the point of that if the camera isn't even looking at her? Why didn't you just have a video of it? It was hyped up at the time, but when it came to it, it was all so meh, and safe for something that should have been much more.
6: Staircase for Safura, Azerbaijan 2010
Again, somewhere someone is thinking 'Do we really need to lug this thing onto the stage.' This is probably the only case where the presentation actually ruined the song. I don't think anyone got why she was on a very little staircase that was, clearly, too difficult to get down by herself. The only purpose I think it had was so the cameraman could get more of an upskirt shot of her. This might have done better if it had stayed simpler, but nooooo, they had to do a bit more. Azerbaijan must have thought better of this in 2011 because Ell and Nikki were the least stagey entry they've had.
5 the 4 screens behind Blue, UK 2011
Maybe this wasn't really over the top in the Eurovision, but I'm in the UK, so I heard a lot about Blue in the build -up to the contest, where they went on a fair bit about 'keeping things simple.' Why did they need 4 monitors with their ugly mugs on them 2 feet behind them, when the stage has a massive screen already. Couldn't they make use of that. did we need a spelling bee behind them. As for those outfits -- Blue in blue? Don't they know that winners wear black or white.
4. The treadmill stapler thing, Greece 2009
I would say this was the ultimate in ridiculous, over-the-top and unnecessary Eurovision performances but.... I don't know. It was so ridiculous it became awesome again... as did
3. the giant hamster wheel thing, Ukraine, 2009
Oh My God, this is the song that makes people think of the Eurovision as camp, gay and ridiculous. But this song is just so awful, that without it, this really would never have been in the final.
2: The ice rink, Russia 2008
I'm always confused by this one. Did Dima Bilan really want to be an ice skater or something? Where did they even find that? How did the skater not accidentally cut someone's fingers off. Did Bilan have really cold feet after? Why, just why? And did anyone find it impressive? Wasn't Bilan enough by himself? Did he need all that stuff. Admittedly, it does look sorta interesting, but I don't really get why they bothered. I dunno, maybe it's a Russian thing
1: The glass box, Sweden 2011,
Oh I just hate this smug preening tosspot anyway. He makes Alexander Rybak look just charming. Urgh, Just look at him. How I hate him, how i hate this song, how I hate anyone who liked this song.
That glass box though. What the hell are you doing? Why. It's so fake, so stagey, and does nothing. I think he's supposed to look cool, but considering most of us hardcore fans saw him throw a little strop when the technical people couldn't get it to work in rehearsals, mostly it just comes across as a rather bothersome, unnecessary gimmick in a repetitive, ugly song about wanting to be popular. Yeah, being popular, Eric, that'll make the girl like you more. You don't get rejected because you're not cool, it's because you're a tosser.
I really hate Eric Saade. I really hoped the glass wouldn't break in the final and he'd be stuck in that box. But that might have meant he'd have to do the song again. Urgh. Fuck Eric Saade.
