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Bye Bye Germany

Bye Bye Germany (Es war einmal in Deutschland...)

Movie · 2017 · 13 people

Bye Bye Germany (German title: Es war einmal in Deutschland...) is a 2017 tragicomedy directed by Sam Garbarski and co-produced by Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg. Garbarski wrote the screenplay together with Michel Bergmann, adapting Bergmann's own novels "Die Teilacher" and "Machloikes". Shot in German and running 102 minutes, the film premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival on 10 February 2017.

Set in Frankfurt in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, the story follows Holocaust survivor David Bermann and his friends, who go door to door selling linens to scrape together the money they need to emigrate to America as quickly as possible. A clever business scheme seems to solve their problem, but Bermann's real trouble is his past: Sara Simon, a sharp and uncompromising American officer, keeps interrogating him about what he did during the war, even as she finds his charm increasingly hard to resist.

Moritz Bleibtreu stars as David Bermann, with Antje Traue as Sara Simon and Mark Ivanir as Holzmann; the cast also includes Tim Seyfi, Anatole Taubman and Joel Basman. Blending drama with dark comedy, the film had its German television premiere on ZDF on 19 April 2019.

DirectorSam Garbarski
Bye Bye Germany (Es war einmal in Deutschland...) Bye Bye Germany (Es war einmal in Deutschland...) Bye Bye Germany (Es war einmal in Deutschland...)

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Moritz Bleibtreu Moritz Bleibtreu Film actor · 55 years old Tim Seyfi Tim Seyfi Actor · 55 years old Antje Traue Mark Ivanir Anatole Taubman Hans Löw Joel Basman Joachim Paul Assböck Harvey Friedman Heike Hanold-Lynch Tania Garbarski Bettina Stucky Christian Kmiotek

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Through different eyes

History & Society Lens Asks about the period, the social background and what the work reflects.

Holocaust survivors in post-war Frankfurt selling linens door to door so they can leave for America as fast as possible: the film puts a little-discussed interval of history on screen. Its real value, in my view, is the reminder that liberation was not an ending but a new start built on poverty, uncertainty and unease. The American officer who keeps questioning Bermann about his war years raises uncomfortable questions about the price of survival and the reckoning with the past. It tries to handle the subject without weighing it down or making light of it, and its roots in Michel Bergmann's own novels feed that sense of period.

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

Garbarski tries to hold drama and dark comedy in the same frame, and that balance is, to my mind, both the film's appeal and its weak spot. The thread built around the salesmen's clever scheme moves with a familiar ensemble-comedy rhythm, while Bermann's encounters with Sara Simon carry the material of a much heavier film. When the two strands feed each other the story deepens; when they drift apart the pacing turns uncertain, slowing down and speeding up by turns. The role asks Bermann to stay sympathetic and suspect at once, and the script's most interesting tension lives in that ambiguity. Still, such loaded material could have carried a bolder structure; at times the comedy feels like a way of stepping around the weight of the question.

Family Viewer Asks whether the whole household can watch it; cares about humour and heart.

The subject is Holocaust survivors after the war, so don't expect a light family comedy. There is humour, but it is dark humour, and the interrogation scenes keep the pain of the past in view. It is not for young children. Watched with high-school-age teenagers who are interested in history, it leaves plenty to talk about afterwards. It helps to have a parent alongside.

These are not reader reviews: they are short editorial takes written from different viewer perspectives with AI assistance. Reader reviews are below.

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