FREE ON YOUTUBE Momo

FREE ON YOUTUBE  Once upon a time ... the poet rode the train. On a slow train. That pleases the author of the Momo novel - Michael Ende - because his poet has time. The poet who reads the Times, that's Michael Ende himself. Then, all of a sudden, an old man sits opposite him. The old man looks like John Huston. He introduces himself as Master Hora. He smiles wisely and seems omniscient. Almost like a god. Hora now tells the fable of Momo and the grey masters who steal time. When I was a child the novel was published - and I loved it! Later I read Momo again. I still loved Momo and incidentally I noticed how intelligently Michael Ende constructed his story. In 1986 producer Horst Wendlandt brought the story to the big screen. This German producer film was certainly not easy for the author. Anyone who reads interviews with him quickly notices that the novelist doesn't like the cinema. He prefers the slow art of writing. Momo is an orphan. She lives on the edge of town. Where the poor people live. Everyone likes Momo because she's such a good listener. Everything is peaceful and leisurely - until the grey gentlemen appear. They spread hecticness everywhere and the quarter develops uncomfortably. Suddenly everything is poured with concrete. You eat fast food and work all day long. A kind of fantasy Italy, which is changing into a modern metropolis. Momo is played by Radost Bokel. She looks like a girl, but is basically not a being of flesh and blood. Even her name seems like an allegory. The guardian of time is called Secundus Minutius Hora. He is the guardian of the paper hourflower. From its leaves the grey gentlemen roll cigars. That's why they steal time from us, drive us to work more and faster. So they smoke up our lost time. Only Momo can save us. She walks around like Diogenes. barefoot, in a man's jacket. Only Momo knows that such a time blossoms in the heart of every man. It measures our life time. If it withers, we die. That is why the grey men are such an insidious, even murderous organisation! They have no life force of their own, only their cigars. With our stolen time. Too much cultural pessimism? Too much criticism of civilization? But Momo is a fantasy tale! In it, the enchanted kingdom, which looks like Italy, is on the verge of extinction. The enemy is a kind of zombie army. Like a wave, they sweep over the kingdom in secret and absorb it. In between is Momo. She discovers the secret of the time flower and the weakness of the grey masters. Only the faith of Momo can change fate! Like in every very good fantasy fairy tale, Momo plays in a world of her own with her very own rules. But the focus is always on the story! And that's why you can see the film again and again!