Jonas

Who hasn't had that horrible nightmare after graduation: you're suddenly sitting in your old classroom again, a paper is being written or homework is being asked and you're not prepared. Then it's there again, that uneasy feeling that always made itself known when you had to go to the front of the blackboard and were forced to reveal your ignorance in front of the whole class. But luckily, those are just nightmares and you'd have to be quite the idiot to make them a reality again. Fortunately for all moviegoers, such an idiot has now been found in Christian Ulmen, because in his documentary comedy Jonas he pushes the school desk once again as an 18-year-old.

With the help of his make-up artists significantly rejuvenated Ulmen becomes the Sitzenbleiber Jonas, who is given one last chance at the Paul Dessau Comprehensive School in Berlin. In a few weeks of testing, he is supposed to prove to the teachers that he is serious about his desire to graduate and that his previously poor performance will improve significantly. Integrating himself into the class community is also an important part of this test. Jonas succeeds very well in the latter, starting his own band project after just a few days. But while it rocks musically, completely unnecessary things like logarithm rules just won't go through his head. And then he falls in love with his music teacher Frau Maschke. How is a young person supposed to be able to concentrate?

For six weeks the Jonas team filmed at a real school with real pupils and teachers. Christian Ulmen always pretended to be his artificial character Jonas and thus integrated himself directly into everyday school life. Even though the film doesn't reveal how much of the whole thing is staged and to what extent the students and teachers were aware of Jonas' true identity, the whole thing works surprisingly well. For as with previous formats such as Mein neuer Freund, whose director Robert Wilde again pulled the strings in the background, Ulmen melts into his role in such a way that one is quite inclined to be able to understand why he was also accepted as Jonas at school.

It is pleasing that Jonas, unlike ulmen.tv or Mein neuer Freund is not out to provoke. Sure, there are always moments when Ulmen gets his opponent to let a funny situation arise. Nevertheless, this kind of modern Feuerzangenbowle is more about observing and reminding the viewer of his own school days. And so there are scenes again and again, which most of us might have experienced in exactly the same or similar way. Well, the film could be accused of showing a very glossed over picture of the current school system. Because here there are no real conflicts, the students are largely well-behaved and interested in learning. Bullying, violence, integration problems, disillusioned teachers on the verge of bourn-out - you look for all that here in vain. And yet: Jonas is realistic. Because even if some important problematic issues - which would also have been out of place in such a comedic format - are left out, essential school experiences are captured very well.

Whether real or staged, Jonas is quite a lot of fun, also because the film is not always a pleasant journey back in time to one's own youth and has the one or other Fremdschämmoment to offer. and once again proof of the formats in which Christian Ulmen is simply in his element. With it the transfer is in no way endangered!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp