Das Gesicht

In the organizer's words:

Bruno Deutz is a bourgeois, a reasonably successful hairdresser, trapped in an unhappy marriage with his wife Hanna - so far so normal. His appearance, however, is anything but normal, as he looks exactly like the president of the fictitious totalitarian dictatorship in which we find ourselves. And Bruno is vulnerable to blackmail, because in his youth he was part of an opposition group that put up posters critical of the regime. His friend and leader at the time, Josef, was caught and arrested.

The story begins when Josef is released as part of a general amnesty and Hanna's old love for him is rekindled. The president also hires Bruno as a double to stand in for him at a parade where an assassination attempt on the president is planned. When Bruno then unexpectedly has to not only play the president in a representative capacity, but really impersonate him with all the consequences, he does so in a surprisingly brutal way.

Siegfried Lenz uses the means of comedy to examine the question of corruptibility through power and the motivations behind it. Parallels to current figures of horror come to mind.

further information