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Svenja Jung as solo dancer Chris: Only the opening of the wall can help
Photo: Julia Terjung / ZDF
Marlene and Chris don't know anything about each other. They were separated shortly after the birth because the systemic conflict of the post-war period also raged between mother and father. Shortly before the fall of the Wall - glasnost is already a topic in the news - Marlene travels to a supplier in the GDR as a negotiator for her parents' company. The nice gentlemen from the Chamber of Foreign Trade lead the young businesswoman from Germany to the Friedrichstadt-Palast, the »Las Vegas of the East« - there Marlene recognizes her sister on stage in the solo dancer Chris.
The separation of the babies is told in a sepia-colored flashback right at the beginning, the drama is only spelled out gradually. Why, why, why, since when and for how long? For this, director Uli Edel takes a lot of time in the six 45-minute episodes of "The Palace". A total of four and a half hours in which "The Double Lottery" could be read off effortlessly.
Unfortunately, Erich Kästner's book contains West German boncentage, East German work ethos, socialist idealism, anti-communist resentment, homosexuality in the GDR, narrow-minded marriage cages in the FRG, various love stories, competition between female artists, the quarrel of directors who are not loyal to the line and the worries of medium-sized companies in the metalworking industry not before.
And also not the Friedrichstadt-Palast, whose vaudeville theater serves as a colorful backdrop for a richly gray, because German-German history.
A bungalow from Oggersheim's style
Chris has settled in well on this island of serenity. She lives as a single parent and is amicably separated from her daughter's gay father, with whom she dances ("Westfernsehen nur mit mir!" , past authentic GDR punks with threatening hairstyles.
Marlene, on the other hand, lives with Nazi grandpa (Friedrich von Thun) and the (initially) emotionally cold papa (Heino Ferch, whose full head looks great) in an Oggersheim-style bungalow, with an old S-Class in the driveway and napkin holders, servants ( in the background), red wine for dinner and one of these side tables with whiskey in glass bottles, from which the host can pour himself a glass under pressure and look meaningfully out of the window.
Leading actress Svenja Jung was too good for "Unter Uns", in "Der Palast" she lifts the double role with ease and noticeably fun playing the game - even if Marlene and Chris have a moral compass that is a little too confidently into the greatness of the story Melodrama transforms: "If that is true, then our parents must have cheated on us for decades!"
The initial encounter is told quickly and is as tearful as the foreseeable role reversal.
In general, the foreseeable future will soon come to an end.
The best friend applies to leave the GDR, who will he meet in the West?
The current staging does not conform to the system, what will the Ministry of Culture say about it?
The gay make-up artists (among others and wonderfully: Matthias Matschke) tease each other, will they perhaps be weighed against each other in the end?
And won't the Stasi find out about the sibling identity swap at some point?
Tension is only mild
The routine script by Rodica Doehnert (»Das Adlon«, also by Uli Edel, also with Heino Ferch) leaves nothing to be desired and doesn’t get tangled.
Tension arises only mildly, at most when entering and leaving the country in the face of sinister border officials.
Humor, actually the fuel of every confusion story, does not exist in either the East or the West.
In »Das doppelte Lottchen« the separation is the result of a relationship story - here it is so charged with world history and ideology that in the end only the opening of the wall can help.
Whether Adlon, Charité, or Ku'damm 56, 59 or 63 - what is not torn down in Berlin in time will at some point serve as a symbolic prism in which too much historical and loosely thrown stories are to be reflected or broken.
Which just doesn't work if the prism is ground too smooth.
In the worst case, what remains is the Schmonzette.
Or, as with »The Palace«, harmless variety TV.
»The Palace«,
starting Monday, 8:15 pm, ZDF.
Already available in the media library.