Love is forbidden but sexual promiscuity is mandatory, even for underage girls, in the creepy rural commune at the heart of So Long Daddy, See You in Hell. It may sound like a dystopian folk-horror fantasy but German director-editor Christopher Roth’s latest feature is actually firmly rooted in a real cult-like community founded by the notorious Austrian avant-garde artist Otto Muehl in the early 1970s. Told from the viewpoint of a young female commune member, Roth’s lightly fictionalised drama is an engrossing study in mass gaslighting and twisted political radicalism, couching some very dark material in a deceptively sunny and lyrical package. World premiering at the Munich Film Festival this week, this warning from history feels more current and universal than most period pieces, gaining extra timely traction in the post MeToo era, with toxic masculinity under much deeper scrutiny.
Roth is best known for his controversial re-telling of the Baader-Meinhof terrorist gang story in Baader (2002). There are clear parallels with So Long Daddy, See You in Hell, another semi-fictionalised historical drama about a charismatic leader whose left-wing rejection of bourgeois norms also curdled into an totalitarian personality cult. The real Muehl died in 2013, largely unrepentant despite serving jail time for child sex crimes. His artistic reputation is still contentious in Austria, where posthumous exhibitions of his work have been mounted by major museums, despite public protests. How to deal with the legacy of abusive men, and how far we should separate the art from the artist, are hotter issues today than they were during Muehl’s commune period.
Set in the late 1980s, So Long Daddy, See You in Hell draws heavily on the real life story of joint screenwriter Jeanne Tremsall, an actor, restaurateur and artist who spent much of her childhood in Muehl’s AAO commune in Friedrichshof, south of Vienna. Jeanne (Jana McKinnon) is a free-thinking adolescent who angers loose-cannon cult leader Otto (Clemens Schick) by committing the terrible sin of developing a budding teen romance with handsome French boy Jean (Leo Altaras). As a consequence, the jealous Otto publicly denounces the pair, banishing Jean to another commune, then makes persistent sexual advances to the virginal 14-year-old Jeanne himself. “You know I’m going to be your first”, he leers. “That’s how we do things here.”
Adding extra autobiographical bite to Roth’s film, Tremsall herself plays a small role as her own mother, a commune veteran with no ethical qualms about handing over her daughter to a serial sexual predator like Otto. She even sleeps with Otto herself, flattered to be chosen from the clamouring gaggle of groupies who compete to share his bed every night. This is nauseating, often shocking material, but So Long Daddy, See You in Hell is not a bleak viewing experience. As filtered through young Jeanne’s viewpoint, there are tender, sunny coming-of-age memories mixed in with the dark stuff. “It wasn’t only bad there,” Tremsall said in a recent interview. “In fact, as a young child it was paradise: art, music, horses, the outdoors. But it became authoritarian and hell.”
Roth’s Baader-Meinhof film concluded with a fictionalised cinematic finale that quoted knowingly from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), with the terrorists going down in a blaze of glory rather than suffering their real fate, a murky mass suicide in prison years later. At the dreamlike climax to So Long Daddy, See You in Hell, the director seems eager to give Muehl a similarly mythic Hollywood ending. Increasingly rejected by the mutinous young communards who once blindly loved and feared him, Otto is struck down in a symbolic showdown reminiscent of Colonel Kurtz’s ritual slaying in Apocalypse Now (1979). But the story then switches back to realism, with the autocratic artist arrested and jailed, just like the real Muehl. This blend of alternate realities feels slightly muddled, somewhere between dutiful biopic convention and Tarantino-esque wishful thinking.
So Long Daddy, See You in Hell is also a little too thin on character detail and socio-political context. Only Jeanne has any real depth, even if McKinnon is too old to pass as an unworldly teenager. Most frustratingly, Roth and Schick present Otto as a slimy, diabolical, almost cartoonish villain from the start, his crimes enabled by callous female deputies and crooked politicians. More insight into his ideological worldview, psychological motivation and dangerous charisma would have been welcome, especially for viewers unfamiliar with Muehl’s real story. Understanding monsters is not the same as forgiving them.
Aesthetically, the film has a freewheeling rhythm and semi-improvised feel which suits its tree-hugging hippie-rustic setting, even if Roth as editor sometimes hobbles Roth as director by allowing some scenes to ramble too long. A lightly non-linear plot and sporadic use of childlike on-screen graphics help illustrate the brittle power structure behind the commune, underscoring key points where Otto’s authority begins to crack. The thoughtfully curated, retro-leaning jukebox soundtrack includes uber-kitsch Austrian pop idol Falco alongside more contemporary indie-rockers like Cat Power and Bat for Lashes. A burst of disruptive punky noise over the opening credits helps establish the key theme of trouble in paradise.
Venue: Munich Film Festival
Director: Christopher Roth
Screenwriters: Jeanne Tremsal, Christopher Roth
Cast: Jana McKinnon, Clemens Schick, Leo Altaras, Ina Paule Klink, Aenne Schwarz, Patrick Schorn, Steffen Wink, Jeanne Tremsal
Producer: Andro Steinborn
Cinematography: Lydia Richter
Editing: Christoph Bargfrede, Christopher Roth
Production design: Michael Schindlmeier
Music: Cosimo Flohr
Production companies: Arden Film (Germany), Friendship Films (Germany)
World sales: Arden Film
In German, French
116 minutes