Joschka und Herr Fischer

If you expect to learn something new about Joschka Fischer, you should not watch this film. In this documentary he hardly talks about private stuff but rather about post-war events and - a bit - about their impact on him.

The entire documentary shows Joschka Fischer in a video installation where he sees scenes of his own live and it streams the scenes themselves. We learn that he grew up in an environment where people voted for the Christian Democratic Union and that he was an altar boy. The film moves on to his early political live, eg the killing of Benno Ohnesorg by the police, the terror by the Red Army Faction and how he finally became minister.

Here the film does get a little personal: Fischer describes why he had to wear sneakers and a naff jacket even though he did not like them and how awful it was for him to head a huge administration where he has to learn who is responsible for what.

Later on, when he was Foreign Minister, he was responsible for sending German soldiers to former Yugoslavia - without a UN mandate. He tries to explain why he did so but seems rather wishy-washy. After all, he is a "realo", while the fundamentalist Greens nowadays have left Germany's parliament(s).

If you want to learn more about him, his motives etc, you should probably read "Mein langer Lauf zu mir selbst" - which I haven't - but if you want to know more about Germany's history after the Second World War, you will get concise information in just 140 minutes. As I am not that much interested in some politician's private live, I liked this film.