Micha Lewinsky’s mines an historical incident for comedy in his playful post-Cold War comedy.
When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, some governments feared the spread of Communist agitators across Western Europe. Particularly Switzerland. Yes, the land of cuckoo clocks and nice chocolate dreaded some kind of post-Soviet infiltration and so set up surveillance of almost a million of its residents. Lewinsky’s comedy has inept but likeable police officer Viktor (Philippe Graber) is assigned by his equally useless boss to infiltrate a left-leaning theatre company Zurich Schauspielhaus. Instead, he finds his time taken up with a rigorous timetable of warm-up routines and rehearsals, whilst attracting the attention of fellow actor Odile (Generation War’s Miriam Stein). If you cross ‘Noises Off’ with ‘Good Bye Lenin!’, you’re close to the quirky tone of Lewinsky’s entertaining comedy drama.
