The most obvious problem with the "Die Hamburger Krankheit" (The Hamburg disease) is the anarchy -- in the minds of the three scriptwriters. They couldn't deliver a coherent story or atmosphere, interesting characters or ideas, couldn't actually do their job. They just created random scenes with occasional on-topic moments and with basic informations missing. Case in point: The nature of the disease and its transmission route remain unknown. There are no symptoms, the sick behave unusually for a bit, fall down and die. Sometimes they just fall down and die. Some people are dominated by hysteria, some move in crowds, as if everything were normal. There are no rules, no consistencies, nothing really matters. Even though some things do ring true, this is not a serious movie about a pandemic. It's also not a thriller, no genre film. And it's not a low-budget film, so lack of money is not the excuse here. This is just another tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, told by lazy smug authors.
"Die Hamburger Krankheit" is above all about people trying to get away from quarantine zones, from government measures, moving southwards. Characters disappear and magically reappear hundreds of kilometers later. Most characters are unremarkable or unlikeable. The actual lead role is Ottokar, played by the Spanish playwright Fernando Arrabal, and he is plainly annoying. Wikipedia describes Arrabal's theatre as "wild, brutal, cacophonous, and joyously provocative". That's a neat characterization of Ottokar, the pesky anarchist.
In the beginning the gerontologist Sebastian (Helmut Griem) rambles a lot about life, disease and death. A theme seems to emerge: There are too many people, especially too many old people, and the disease is nature's way of taking care of that. Everything considered, this might be the actual worldview, the message of the authors. They show quite a number of very ancient folks. Singing old songs, walking around, the horror. Guys wearing traditional costumes, acting viciously. Some rich people talking about their malicious economic interests. Old politicians sending out their uniformed tools, who are the main villains from the beginning to the end, when the police is hunting down the unvaccinated.
Few hits, many misses. The only redeeming qualities of "Die Hamburger Krankheit" can be found in the scenes with an unique strangeness: The gerontology congress, an alpine farmer yodeling, the stunts of Fritz (Tilo Prückner), the schemes of Heribert (Ulrich Wildgruber), a nude scene with Romy Haag, who was around that time in a relationship with David Bowie. This might be a good film to make fun of, watching it in the company of like-minded friends. "Die Hamburger Krankheit" is boring, but strange, so very strange. ("Bad German Movies"-Review No. 27)
