“Dying is no solution either”: Man tired of life meets “Black Widow”

“Dying is not a solution either”
Man tired of life meets “Black Widow”

Walter Sittler (70, “One doesn’t die among friends”) and Andrea Sawatzki (59, “Bundschuh” series) play the main roles in the intelligent, witty and very colorful TV comedy “Dying is also no solution” (20.1., 8:15 p.m., the first) by director Ingo Rasper (48).

That’s what “Dying is no solution” is about

The widowed bookworm Hermann (Sittler) believes he has found the right person in the elegant literature lover Hanne (Sawatzki) – but not for life, but for his imminent death! After being diagnosed with cancer, the melancholy pensioner neither wants to fight nor languish like his beloved wife 30 years ago, but wants to resign in a self-determined manner – as long as he is still doing well. However, suicide or euthanasia are out of the question for Hermann, out of consideration for his single-parent daughter Claudia (Anja Knauer, 43) and his grandson Lenny (Arthur Gropp), who have no idea about his serious illness.

Through his acquaintance with the widow Hanne, whose well-to-do husband died shortly after their marriage, he had a surefire idea: he had to marry the “Black Widow”, who, as a trained pharmacist, was very familiar with poison. In order to win Hanne’s heart, the sometimes insensitive and know-it-all Hermann relies on a well-dosed mixture of imposture, understatement and charm. In this way he gets closer to the woman he is courting, but his goal is becoming more and more a possibility: through the romantic approach to his widow-to-be, life gives him joy again…

Andrea Sawatzki: “Personally, I’m much more shy than Hanne”

Andrea Sawatzki says what is so special about this film in the context of the “Endlich Freitag” slot and why she wanted to play in it: “I was in the mood for this weird, unconventional female role. A person who, on the one hand, seems quite cheeky, but still highly sensitive.” But she was also very excited to work with Ingo Rasper, the director, and with Walter Sittler. “Both were nice encounters,” says the actress.

Whether the flashy dressed Hanne and Andrea Sawatzki are similar in their character traits? “We tend to be opposites. But, as is well known, opposites attract, which is why I really liked playing Hanne. Personally, I’m much more shy than Hanne, I avoid strangers,” says Sawatzki. “But maybe we do have one thing in common: the trait of not wanting to be patronized if you don’t see the point behind it,” she adds.

Walter Sittler: “In a large family like mine, that’s a constant, unavoidable issue”

Walter Sittler wanted to play the pensioner with a tendency to look pessimistic because he wanted to know how his character would find his way out of the apparently hopeless situation. “It’s a well-known phenomenon: in difficult, if not tragic, situations, wanting to do everything right often leads to being overwhelmed, but this cannot be admitted. At least not to the point of collapse. We live in a society where you really don’t know anything ‘wrong’ – an ultimately hopeless situation,” explains Sittler. He was interested in “how a character finds its way out there, of course with the help of other people”.

The film is also about dying and death. But that didn’t affect Sittler, as he says. “No, these are issues that have been with me for a long time. In a large family like mine, this is a constant, unavoidable issue.”

The “favorite places” of Sawatzki and Sittler

“Dying is also no solution” is about “favorite places”. Sawatzki’s is “my garden,” as she reveals. Sittler’s “oasis of calm” are people: “Through my job I’ve been able to see and experience many beautiful places, but the oasis, as you call it, is where I can be with my family – usually it’s with my wife in Stuttgart,” he says.

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