I was an extra in this film for two separate shootings, seeing it for the first time 3 months ago. The first shooting included the scenes related to the convoys of American troops entering a village. I am the bazooka carrier in the back of the truck and walking next to the tank. To give us the "battlefield fatigue" look we were all issued our uniforms the day before and we were required to wear it. A group of us were taken to a typical German beer festival that night in full uniform. We sang and drank beer with the local villages until late into the night. The next morning we were all yanked out of our bunks very early and asked to role in the mud. Needless to say we were hungover, tired...just miserable. We had the right look. A few weeks later I was invited to return for shooting the bar scenes. Again, beer was involved as well as singing and dancing however this time it was on film. I am the one giving a good shove to the lead. My vote for the film is a bit nostalgic. I would not have selected it for viewing had I not been in it. However, I found the film to be a wonderful romance staged in chaos and innocence.
2 Reviews
Too generic and stereotypical for my liking
Horst_In_Translation24 August 2016
Warning: Spoilers
"Rama Dama" is a German movie from 1991, so this one has its 25th anniversary this year already. Writer and director is Joseph Vilsmaier, possibly Germany's most known and most successful filmmaker back then. His wife Dana Vávrová plays the main character and the title is Bavarian slang, which is nothing too uncommon looking at Vilsmaier's origin and other works. This film plays several decades earlier than when it was made and it is all about World War II once again. You could call it a "Trümmerfrauen" film for sure as major focus here is on the life of a woman when her man does not come back from war. Until he does at the very end, but at this point she is already in a new relationship of course and the only real conflict in the film is about which man she is gonna stay with. As much as I feel sorry for Vávrová because of her untimely death, I also must say I hardly never see great acting potential in her or maybe it is just the way Vilsmaier wrote these characters for her as I am not a big fan of the filmmaker either judging from other films that I have seen from him. It is all very bleak and the action rarely justifies a film of such runtime (over 100 minutes in this case). The main characters are rarely likable, even if they were intended that way. Maybe realism is not a good thing in this context. And the supporting characters usually also add very little to me. But of course, this could very well be just personal bias and personal taste as well and other audience members may have a much better time watching. I myself give this one a thumbs-down though. Not recommended.
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