Abbuzze! Der Badesalz Film (1996)

The film consists of various, often grotesque episodes, loosely connected to varying degrees by a framing story. Many of the episodes revolve around surveillance and security. In the prologue, Knebel and Nachtsheim appear as actors who were supposed to be in the film. Breaking the fourth wall, they clumsily express their disappointment to the audience that their scenes were cut entirely. In the framing story, insurance salesman Erich Honger (Nachtsheim) drives to a client meeting, the purpose of which the viewer never learns, although it is suggested that Erich is hoping to land a lucrative deal through questionable business practices. At his destination, a rather run-down apartment building, however, he discovers that his contact has died and leaves empty-handed. On his way down to the ground floor, he gets stuck in the elevator with a man named Richard (Knebel). Erich is eager to get out as quickly as possible, but Richard is in no particular hurry; he seems to live in the elevator, which is unusually large for a residential building (about 3 × 3 meters). The episodes unfold as follows: Two caretakers (Knebel and Nachtsheim) sit in front of the video-surveillance monitors, eat vast quantities of “Gummern” (cucumbers), and one explains to the other how to switch between the monitors. Although they repeatedly switch to the surveillance camera in the elevator, neither of them notices the two men trapped inside. Mr. Neumann has been found dead in his apartment; he has evidently been dead for some time. While the undertakers carry out the body, curious neighbors stand around in the apartment, gossiping about the deceased, and a real-estate agent (Martin Armknecht) is already showing a prospective new tenant around. Four elderly women in the same apartment building hold their regular coffee gathering while the hostess’s son indulges his sadistic, necrophilic fantasies in his room. The women in the living room get into heated arguments over details of the gossip they have been exchanging, and eventually their coffee gathering turns into a drinking spree. As a new surveillance camera is being installed in a supermarket, two cashiers (Knebel and Nachtsheim) accuse a pregnant woman (Karen Friesicke) of shoplifting. While the store manager and the shop detective examine the customer with an ultrasound machine in the back room, she goes into labor. Eight Eskimos in an igloo watch a Bavarian stage show on television. The show features a performance called “Der Piercing Huber,” starring Huber (Knebel), who has raided the beer fund to get himself pierced. He also wonders why the audience laughs whenever he sits down; it is because his genitals are on display when he does. Flashback to Erich’s past: Erich tells his regulars at the local pub, all of them tradesmen, that he has a high-school diploma, and they throw him out of the place. In an upscale restaurant, diners go berserk after eating meat contaminated with BSE. A bodybuilder (Knebel) trains hard at the gym in preparation for May, when the outdoor swimming pools open again. Two security guards (Knebel and Nachtsheim) at an underground station arrest a supposed polluter and look the other way during two fights. The famous actor Fred Labosch (Knebel) is shooting several films at once, including Ben Hur, Musketeer with Heart, Gang War in L.A., Flames of Hell, and Bible III. Richard, who idolizes Labosch, wonders what he is up to these days and speculates that he is enjoying himself somewhere. In fact, Labosch, a heavy smoker all his life, is in the hospital after an operation on his larynx, where he talks with another patient (Nachtsheim) about the absurdity of doctors’ health recommendations. A young couple (Nachtsheim and Kristiane Kupfer), unable to have a child, find an unusually large foundling at a kiosk (Knebel) and give him a new home. They name the foundling “Abbuzze.” Two rockers, Headbanger and Richie (Knebel and Nachtsheim), who work for the building-surveillance service, wreak havoc in an apartment building, make music, and watch a commercial on television for the “Germanenkrug,” a “German-only pub” popular especially with neo-Nazis, where people of color have even been lynched. A parody of Das Boot: A submarine is in danger of sinking until the captain (Ottfried Fischer), with his skillful bits of wisdom about Eintracht Frankfurt, helps the crew avert disaster as they interpret them as mnemonics for the necessary tasks. The submarine is able to continue its journey and deliver the Ebbelwoi made on board to England. Finally, the elevator doors open again, allowing Erich and Richard to get out. Erich goes back in to retrieve his briefcase from the elevator and gets trapped inside again. Two years later, another salesman sets off for the same apartment building. He, too, gets trapped in the elevator. Erich greets him and tells him that it “might take a little while.” In the end credits, the two “actors” from the prologue address the audience once more.