Ottokar der Weltverbesserer (1977)

Eleven-year-old Ottokar is in fifth grade and can’t stand one thing: injustice. He is always getting involved and trying to help, and gets told off for it. On the last day of vacation, he is coming back from fishing with his best friend Sigi when he sees a crying child whose toy boat has just fallen into the water and drifted away. Ottokar wants to borrow a rowboat from a private dock to retrieve the toy, but the boat’s owner berates him. So he jumps into the water fully clothed. The bystanders now turn against the boat’s owner, as Ottokar intended, but he has to explain to his parents why his clothes are wet. School starts, and Ottokar gets a new class teacher, Mr. Burschelmann. Ottokar is a good student, but the teachers are always suspecting him of fooling around. Most of the time, however, it is Heinz “Pillenheini” Pilgrim who acts unjustly and is therefore stopped by Ottokar. When Pillenheini throws stones into a puddle during the students’ assembly marking the start of the school year, Ottokar tries to stop him but is himself taken for the stone-thrower. When Ottokar slides down the stair railing as a dare, another student imitates him and has a serious accident. The teacher on duty is suspended. Other things go wrong for Ottokar, too. After the accident, the school administration introduces student monitors, and the older students now want to make the younger ones wash their hands before lunch. Ottokar pointedly refuses to eat, later pretends to be ill from hunger because the older students wouldn’t let him eat, and is sent to the cafeteria by his teacher. On his way there, he promptly runs into another teacher, who gives him a reprimand. And the mishaps keep coming: Ottokar tries to stop a student from smoking and gets beaten up by him. With a nosebleed, he is sent home to change and causes chaos in his bedroom because he wants to dress especially smartly. An obscene drawing that Ottokar hides from the teacher isn’t his, but he is promptly reprimanded as its artist. And when Ottokar brings a drunk teenager home out of concern, he doesn’t get thanked for it either. Instead, the mother thinks he encouraged her son to drink. Mr. Burschelmann, however, has long realized that Ottokar really does always mean well. At the parent-teacher conference, he announces that he wants to channel Ottokar’s energy in the right direction. In fact, Ottokar is on the verge of being elected to the class council and even helps the current group council representative write the annual report. In the end, he is praised as helpful, committed, and active, and is elected to the class council, although Pillenheini and four other students in the class vote against him. The next morning, Ottokar is on his way to school with Sigi. Sigi has just received a ticket from a police officer because his bicycle has no light; a young teacher, however, gets only a warning after going through a red light. Ottokar has to set things right again and confronts the police officer. Once the matter is settled, he runs to school and promptly arrives late. More trouble is bound to follow.