All About Me

Based on the memoirs of the comedian Hape Kerkeling, whose childhood in the Ruhr Valley was shaped by coal dust and the carnival season, the story told in All About Me is funny, sad, and warm all in one. The young Hans-Peter (later nicknamed Hape) realises early that he has the gift of being able to make others laugh: his grandparents, the customers at his grandmother's general store, his fun-loving relatives, the parents of his classmates – the only person whose spirits he can't lift, try as he might, is his depressive mother, who kills herself when he is nine years old.

Recklinghausen in the Ruhr Valley, in the early 1970s. Hans-Peter is nine years old and a bit on the chubby side. But that doesn't deflate the self-confidence of the happy-go-lucky little boy, for with his jokes and parodies he can make anyone laugh – a talent that serves him well later in life when, as Hape Kerkeling, he becomes one of the most popular and best comedians of Germany. This film by the Oscar-winning director Caroline Link (Nowhere in Africa) is based on his memoirs.

For all its comedy, All About Me also offers an exacting look at a society of suppression and at people who, still traumatised by the Second World War, need to laugh as much as they need air to breathe. Something that Hans-Peter comes to understand early. But when it comes to the most important person in his life, he fails: his depressed mother commits suicide when he is nine years old.

With a flair for detail and a variety of affectionately drawn characters – such as the concerned and caring grandparents, the fun-loving relatives, and other people typical of the Ruhr region – the biopic provides a warm milieu study and a portrait of an epoch in the history of the Federal Republic.

Image © UFA Fiction 2018