A coffin maker fights Nazis in Munich while Achternbusch burns every rule of polite cinema.
This German political drama from iconoclastic filmmaker Herbert Achternbusch takes a slightly askew look at neo-Nazis and the Holocaust. His non-story (a typical trait of Achternbusch films) is divided into three parts. The first introduces Hades, an eccentric half-Jewish coffin maker. Also introduced are the women in his life. The second part depicts different scenes from the city's Jewish ghetto. Included are disturbing film clips from Nazi propaganda footage that shows the naked corpses of starved Jews piled up in the streets with the insinuation that the heartless relatives of the dead would unceremoniously toss them out when they expired. In the third part, Hades is buried at sea. In between, neo-Nazis march unopposed in Munich, Hades battles skinheads, and Hades' shop is repeatedly vandalized. A scene where Hades is fascinated with death is also seen.
Direction
Achternbusch's anti-cinema: structure as accusation, beauty as betrayal.
Editing
Jarring archival insertion—Nazi footage that refuses to let you look away.
Acting
Achternbusch himself: volcanic, grotesque, weirdly fragile as Hades.
Director
Herbert Achternbusch
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Achternbusch was Bavaria's eternal provocateur—this 1995 film landed amid reunification's roiling neo-Nazi violence, making its Munich setting politically explosive.
The 'non-story' structure deliberately mirrors how Germany itself narrativizes Holocaust memory—fragmented, resistant, ultimately sinking into sea.
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