Bully leaves the church in the village: “The Canoe of Manitou” is almost woke-positive
In the new film “Manitu’s Canoe,” director and actor Michael Herbig shows how pleasantly calm and comical cinema can react to woke discourse.
Any woke activist should be satisfied after seeing "Manitou's Canoe" in the cinema . Or, to put it less pointedly: people who campaign against various forms of discrimination, for feminism, or who are concerned about cultural appropriation will know, at the very latest after this film experience, that their issues have reached the mainstream and can be treated there with extreme care and friendly humor. Director Michael Bully Herbig seems to be saying with every scene: Let's not get carried away.
Right from the start, the 57-year-old makes it clear that he's naturally aware of the heated debates (not only) in this country in recent years, and that he, too, doesn't want to simply bring a thoughtless Karl May parody to the screen in 2025. Abahachi, the Winnetou imitator he plays himself, is sitting with a presumably indigenous fortune teller, who, somewhat bewildered, tells him that he shares a blood brotherhood with an old, white man. Abahachi just shrugs. That's just the way it is. When she then prophesies strenuous adventures and the "most difficult test" of his life, he replies in Bavarian dialect: "Uh, actually, I just wanted to know what the weather will be like tomorrow."
This is the first good gag in the best style of the anarchic American filmmaking duo Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker, who, for example, invented "The Naked Gun," which is currently enjoying a revival after a good 30 years and is competing with "Manitou's Canoe" for German audiences. This raises the question of what was the predominant reason for the sequel to "Manitou's Shoe" after almost a quarter of a century: the feeling, apparently also emerging in other parts of the Western world, that the world, amid multiple crises, needs some more senseless nonsense? Or to show that a loving homage to Karl May is still possible today?
In an interview, Bully Herbig explained that it was indeed the very heated and, "in my opinion, polemical debate surrounding Karl May's Winnetou novels and their film adaptations" that inspired him. And after the cinematic experience, one must say: He managed to respond to the excitement with maximum relaxation. This film, while well-informed and rich in allusions, is also absolutely harmless fun, something one would only find objectionable in a very bad mood.
Of course, the new script once again plays with clichés, but it also knows this and highlights it clearly. The entire Wild West, as it is portrayed here, is a cliché, conceived in the century before last by a Saxon who had never been there. Bully uses it as a foil against which he reels off very German gags, which, for example, play on the deputy sheriff's Saxon dialect. 78-year-old Sky du Mont, who celebrates his farewell from the screen with the film, excitedly leafs through a volume of Karl May in the carriage of the oil baron he portrays. Even the brief flashback explaining why he suddenly reappears as the supervillain Santa Maria, who supposedly sank in the oily mud in the first film, is really wonderfully absurdly funny.
Jessica Schwarz plays the female boss of an essentially extremely sympathetic gang of villains who, in a democratic, free, and secret election, call themselves "The Seven Little Goats." When one of the male kids asks her if there's any soup left, she briefly freaks out: "You're only asking me that because I'm a woman! My husband was like that, too! But I built all of this on my own!" Herbig appears again as Abahachi's brother Winnetouch, a sissy, stereotypical gay man who, however, acts so gracefully, confidently, and courageously in difficult situations that some might also interpret this character as empowering.
“No one here is judged by their origins.”In fact, this Wild West is practically no longer populated by macho men; everyone is extremely sensitive and in constant communication about their sensitivities – first and foremost, of course, Christian Tramitz as the Old Shatterhand imitation Ranger, who suddenly has to explain to his “blood brother” that he has a daughter.
The white characters in the film still say "Indianer," but Abahachi always rolls his eyes and scolds: "Please don't say "Indianer!" As for cultural appropriation: As already mentioned, the jokes are more likely to be set in a German dialect or European language. Only viewers who understand French will recognize, for example, that Abahachi and Ranger almost found the Amber Room on their new adventure. And Rick Kavanian is, of course, back in the role of Dimitri, who is of Greek descent and fond of twisting German grammar.
Bully crafted a particularly conciliatory scene for the end. His Native American character struggles with his identity, because he might not even be a real Apache. But his people, possibly even played by real Native Americans, explain to him that it's beside the point: "Here, no one is judged by their origins." So, so far, all's well in the new German cinema world.
“Manitu’s Canoe,” a German comedy, now in cinemas.
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Berliner-zeitung
