As of: March 11, 2024, 7:10 p.m
By: Michael Schleicher
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Munich filmmaker who lived in the USA for many years: Percy Adlon (1935-2024).
© Jörg Schmitt/dpa
With “Out of Rosenheim,” Percy Adlon created a cult film of the 1980s.
Now the Munich director has died in his adopted home of Los Angeles at the age of 88.
Our obituary:
The scene with the rolling suitcase also reveals a lot about the man behind the camera.
Of course, first of all it is Jasmin Münchgstettner, played by Marianne Sägebrecht with a big heart, tough and also with endearing naivety, who is standing there with her luggage somewhere in the middle of nowhere under the California sun.
“Out of Rosenheim” tells how the woman from Rosenheim, separated from her husband after a bitter argument, asserts herself alone.
Like her, her wife stands in a town called Baghdad, where the people have nothing to do with the life that Jasmin has known so far.
Percy Adlon died in Los Angeles at the age of 88
The film, which was released in cinemas in 1987, is Percy Adlon's greatest success.
The director died on Sunday (March 10, 2024) in his adopted home of Los Angeles at the age of 88.
“Out of Rosenheim”, this story of liberation, this paean to friendship and family (whose members do not necessarily have to be related by blood), has not only conquered the hearts of the audience.
The work also tells a lot about its creator, who was born in Munich in 1935 and grew up on Lake Starnberg.
The motif of the suitcase, which represents the departure into an uncertain future, fits the life of the man, whose real name was Paul Rudolf Parsifal Adlon, and who was familiar with departures.
A global success: “Out of Rosenheim” with Marianne Sägebrecht was released in 1987.
© Pelemele Film
His great-grandfather opened the Hotel Adlon in Berlin in 1907;
Percy was born as the illegitimate son of Susanne Adlon and the tenor Rudolf Laubenthal.
In Munich he studied theater studies, art history and German, he took singing lessons and acting lessons - and yet had to realize: "The everyday life of an actor, this constant reinventing yourself - that wasn't something I was given." But there was the love of literature, she brought him to Bavarian Radio: Percy Adlon worked as an author and speaker and soon began to produce documentaries and contributions, for example for the series “Under our Sky”.
His wife and producer: In 1978, Eleonore and Percy Adlon founded Pelemele Film.
© HEINZ WEISSFUSS
In 1978 he founded Pelemele Film with his wife Eleonore;
From then on she was his producer: Yes, the paean to the family, the portrait of a strong woman in “Out of Rosenheim” is actually no coincidence.
However, the couple first took care of the writer Robert Walser (1878-1956).
The docudrama about the Swiss, “The Guardian and His Poet”, with Rolf Illig in the lead role, immediately won the Gold Grimme Prize.
This was followed by documentaries such as "Tim" about the new phenomenon of "roller skaters" in 1980 and film biographies such as "Céleste" (1981, with Eva Mattes as Marcel Proust's housekeeper) or "Five Last Days" (1982), in which the director looks at Sophie Scholl (Lena Stolze) from the perspective of a fellow prisoner.
The gravedigger and the Munich subway driver: Marianne Sägebrecht and Eisi Gulp in the comedy “Zuckerbaby” from 1985. © Pelemele Film
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Even in these works it becomes clear how reserved Adlon stages his work.
Where others might look for something great, he relies on distance and conciseness.
Like in the tragicomedy "Zuckerbaby" from 1985, in which - accompanied by the rock'n'roll of Peter Kraus - a love grows in one of the most loveless places in the city: gravedigger Marianne (Sägebrecht) falls in love with the voice of the Munich subway driver Huber (Eisi Gulp) and from then on tries to find out as much as possible about this guy.
Perhaps that was the motivation that also explains the filmmaker's work: to discover as much as possible in the stories, especially in the biographies and feelings of the characters.
It is an art that this never becomes voyeuristic.
The director also made it clear that “Heimat” – and not only “Out of Rosenheim” shows this wonderfully tenderly – is not a place on a map.
“Home” is within us – and in the people we allow into our lives.
Percy Adlon has found his home in film.