“Sophia: Charly Hübner celebrates bizarre directorial debut

“Sophia
Charly Hübner celebrates bizarre directorial debut

With the novel adaptation “Sophia, der Tod & ich” starts on August 31st the feature film directorial debut Charly Hübner (50, former cult commissioner from the Rostock “police call”) in the cinemas. The tragic comedy was created after the novel of the same name by musician and writer Thees Uhlmann (49) from 2015.

That’s what the film “Sophia, der Tod & Ich” is about

Death named Morten (Marc Hosemann, 53) is at Reiner’s (Dimitrij Schaad, 37) door, telling him that he will die in three minutes. However, a chain of insane circumstances, in which Reiner’s ex-girlfriend Sophia (Anna Maria Mühe, 38) plays a crucial role, prevents his immediate death.

Instead, they find themselves on a chaotic journey that leads first to Rainer’s mother (Johanna Gastdorf, 64) and finally to his little son Johnny (Mateo Kanngiesser) – always with Death, who seems to enjoy earthly life.

The situation is complicated by a second death named Morck Mortus (Carlo Ljubek, 47), who is supposed to complete the killer mission instead of Morten, because obviously what is happening is the seemingly omnipotent G. (Josef Ostendorf, 67) and his archangel Michaela (Lina Beckmann , 42) slipped away…

Here is a North German “Boandlkramer” at work

In terms of the basic concept, the negotiations between the doomed and the personified death are reminiscent of the “Brandner Kaspar” play and the Bully movies about the “Boandlkramer” – Bavarian personification of death. Even in “Sophia, der Tod & ich” Morten’s bloodless face has something uncanny about it. His almost empathetic approach to his inescapable duty and on the other hand his almost childlike interest in earthly life also take the horror out of this death.

Morten is brilliantly embodied by the Hamburg actor Marc Hosemann, who after his debut in “Die hirnlose Frau” (1994) was seen in many cult productions. Among them most recently with Charly Hübner in “Magical Mystery oder: The Return of Karl Schmidt” (2017), in Fatih Akins (50) “Der Goldene Glove” (2019) or in the satirical TV series “Blackout” (2021). Since 2021 he has been playing the branch manager Thorsten in the mockumentary series “Die Discounter”.

Hosemann also stood in front of the camera with Hübner for the six-part series “Legend of Wacken” (RTL), which tells the story of how Wacken Open Air (W:O:A) was founded. Director Detlef Buck (60) also played both here and in “Sophia, Death & I”. In an interview with spot on news, Hübner explained why the three of them work together so often: “They are two wonderful oddballs in a good sense, great comedians and keen observers of what is called time and society. It’s always more than just with Marc and Buck work”, enthused the native of Neustrelitz about his North German colleagues.

Brilliant cast

But not only death, but also all other roles are brilliantly cast. This goes to the inhospitable innkeeper, who Hübner himself embodies, or cult artist and club operator Rocko Schamoni (57), who can be seen as a staid neighbor.

And who could take sentences like “I always had the feeling that life had forgotten me” more than Dimitrij Schaad, who celebrated his breakthrough as the likeable, phlegmatic artist Marc-Uwe with “The Kangaroo Chronicles” (2020). In “Sophia, der Tod & Ich” he also delivers a fascinating door talk with Jehovah’s Witnesses.

How grateful and proud team player Hübner is for his feature film directorial debut is also shown at the end of the film, which is followed by a rarely long end credits – nobody is really not named here who contributed to the success of the film.

The big question

In addition to entertaining dialogues, lovingly staged images that sometimes take some getting used to, and fabulous music by the Swiss duo Nora Steiner and Madlaina Pollina, the question arises again and again as the film progresses as to whether Reiner might be able to escape his fate after all. The viewers of the tragic comedy probably cannot avoid asking themselves what they would do with the last few hours…

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