The Moon Conspiracy

Dennis R.D. Mascarenas, star of the cult documentary Deckname Dennis is once again on the road in Germany to get to the bottom of a particularly strange phenomenon in The Moon Conspiracy: the very special effect the moon seems to have on some Germans. Triggered by a lawsuit in which a German pensioner lays claim to the moon, the reporter from German-language US station DDC-TV travels the country to see if any more people will abandon all reason when it comes to the moon. The answer is quite clearly: Yes! What begins harmlessly with lunar gymnastics, moon water and a moonlight hairdresser takes on increasingly absurd and also disturbing proportions the deeper Mascarenas delves into the matter.

Director Thomas Frickel has made a wonderfully funny documentary with The Lunar Conspiracy that will have you laughing in your throat many a time. Dennis R. D. Mascarenas has an incredible gift for making his interviewees feel like they are being taken seriously by pure listening, which allows him to elicit some truly unbelievable statements from them. For example, the viewer learns that our German identity card is adorned with satanic and almost pornographic images. That our money is poisoned and that the Americans have never been to the moon - because the Germans have forbidden them to do so. Because the Germans own the moon, after all, the Nazis have settled on the backside and are planning to resurrect the German Reich. It's frightening how many people believe such nonsense.

In times of ever-increasing insecurities in almost all areas of life, esotericism offers a supposedly safe nest of security and alleged answers and solutions. Certainly, not everything esoteric should be condemned now. But The Lunar Conspiracy shows that a right-wing, misanthropic ideology can easily grow out of a worldview removed from reality. The fact that some people let themselves be fleeced by shrewd businessmen because of their attitude and buy products like creams and water allegedly influenced by the moon is actually sad enough, but is also only the most harmless side effect of the constantly rising esoteric wave in Germany. Much worse, especially among younger people, is targeted propaganda that turns simple esotericism into a gateway to right-wing extremism. That somewhere in the Arctic under the ice there should be a parallel society founded by Hitler with the name Neuschwabenland, which is preparing to take over world domination, is unfortunately not only fantasy of individual cranks, but firm conviction of relatively many misguided people.

May one at the beginning still believe that The Moon Conspiracy only draws the humorous portrait of a few harmless cranks, so the viewer is taught better in the last third. But even here, Frickel approaches the matter with a very appropriate wink, exposing the insanity of it all without completely trivializing the rather serious background. People who may seem completely normal on the outside, reveal here again and again at times extremely absurd thought patterns, which the viewer can hardly escape. Hearty laughter and disbelieving head shaking alternate here every minute, paired with moments in which one only the mouth stands open in disbelief, in view of what one has just seen and heard here. An extremely entertaining documentary, which shows for which insanity the moon must be used. Absolutely recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp