Fun and politics make uneasy bedfellows in They´ve Got Knut, a subtle comedy of manners about a group of German comrades thrown together in a ski chalet in the early ´80s. Set at a time when protest marches and anti-nuke demos were all the rage in Germany, but soon to become a thing of the past, pic cleverly adopts a distanced approach by being set just across the border, in Austria. As Ingo (Hans-Jochen Wagner) and Nadja (Valerie Koch) talk through their relationship, there´s a knock at the door and the first of several unexpected guests arrive. The chalet is owned by Nadja´s well-heeled family, and her brother, Knut (Ingo Haeb), has invited his politically active pals without telling her. Then news arrives that "they´ve got Knut."
Derek Elley