Scout, that doesn't sound as threatening as informing. And then there was the phrase “scouts of peace,” which in the GDR meant those spies who were active against the class enemy. Eight years ago, Robert Thalheim made a humorous spy film under this title that confronted a team of former East German spies with their West German counterparts. Despite all the differences, in the end there were enough similarities that the tragicomedy never drifted into mere (N)Ostalgia.
In the meantime, the East-West issue has not been overcome, but on the contrary has become the basis for ever new conflicts between the old and new federal states, which, 35 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, seem to have grown less together than they did ten or 20 years ago. Actually a good reason, in the sequel “Scouts of Peace 2“to make another attempt at understanding within Germany. But instead, West Berlin director Robert Thalheim is staging his East German ensemble this time in heavily Eastern Algian clothing, in which socialism is mourned in Cuba, of all places.
After the first part proved to be a hit at the box office, the ex-Eastern spies around DDR-007 Falk (Henry Hübchen) come together for another mission.
The scouts for peace have grown old and now have to act as grave bearers: At the funeral of their old boss Fuchs, the self-proclaimed James Bond of the GDR Falk (Henry Hübchen), the logistician Locke (Thomas Thieme) and the eternal Romeo Harry ( Winfried Glatzeder) again. This time the quartet is completed by Tamara (Katharina Thalbach), a technology expert and eternal revolutionary.
Fuchs spent the last years of his life in Cuba, but there are now problems there: Fuchs' daughter Helene (Corinna Harfouch) needs the support of the scouts because her father has Ernst Thälmann Island – a small peninsula that Fidel Castro once owned the GDR gave it to his housekeeper. The scouts sense the chance of a winter in the Caribbean sun. But when they arrive in Cuba they realize that times have changed…
An absurd but true historical anecdote
Actually a nice approach to spin a spy comedy around the actually existing Ernst Thälmann Island, which is actually a headland on the Cuban south coast. In 1972, Fidel Castro donated this piece of land to the socialist brother state during a visit to what was then the GDR. Nice archive material proves the authenticity of this seemingly absurd historical anecdote. That was a good 50 years ago, just the right amount of time to imagine that the now elderly scouts for peace were already there back then.
In particular, Katharina Thalbach, who joined the scout quartet after the death of Michael Gwisdek, also celebrates Cuba nostalgia. Her name is Tamara, a reference to Tamara Bunke, a German-Argentinian activist who took part in the guerrilla war in Bolivia and may even have been Che Guevara's lover. It's all legend, so it's exactly the right thing for a nostalgic film that sends its characters, who mourn real socialism, to the supposedly socialist model country of Cuba.
Corinna Harfouch, who just won the German Film Prize for “Die”, completes the once again incredibly top-class cast.
Of course, it doesn't matter that the eternal revolutionary Fidel Castro kept a dictatorship alive here for decades and tried to feed his population with glorified stories about the revolution. It seems to have been too inviting for Thalheim and his co-author Peer Klehmet to find on the Caribbean island (although the film was shot in Spain) what seems to have long been lost back home: solidarity and cohesion.
In some moments it seems as if “Scouts of Peace 2” is still taking a differentiated look at the developments in modern Cuba. But scenes in which tourists reserve loungers by the pool with towels in an all-inclusive hotel or listen to overly flowery stories in the Revolution Museum remain the exception. Any suggestion that Cuban socialism is not what it claims to be and that capitalism has long since taken hold is counteracted by scenes in which, for example, the eternal revolutionary hit Bella Ciao is sung with great fervor and completely free of irony.
Everything is a lot simpler (and flatter) than in its predecessor
After all, there is also a West German man in his sixties – a teacher, of course – who also mourns the promise of the revolution and talks about the good old days when he was once present at the occupation of a university. Not just nostalgia, but also nostalgia. The bright sun in Cuba makes it easy to ignore what socialism has done to the Caribbean island.
Especially here, in a place where the myths and the reality of socialism collide, a differentiated representation would have been possible that could have functioned as a mirror of the difficult situation in which Germany finds itself in 2024. But instead, after the amusingly complex “Scout of Peace”, Robert Thalheim this time completely indulges in (N)Ostalgie, although at least the proportion of old-boy jokes is within a manageable range.
Conclusion: While in the first part of his spy comedy Robert Thalheim managed to avoid too much (N)ostalgia and instead tell about different ideas about life with wit and humor, in the sequel he now foregoes any subtlety and instead stages an all too much naive, transfigured piece of revolutionary romanticism.