The Man with the Objective Lens (1961) Der Mann mit am Objektiv
IMDb meta-data is 1 hour and 20 minutes, rated 6.0 by 13 cinematizens.
Genre: Sy Fy; Species: Time traveller: Sub-species: musical.
DNA: DDR.
Verdict: A curiosity.
Tagline: they lived happily ever after until 1989.
In the year 2222 scientists have invented a Time Beam that allows the future to look back at the past through a Time Wall like MST3K projections. During one of these living history lessons the inept Os falls through the Time Wall into 1961. (Yes the year the Berlin Wall went up, but before the Beatles.)
He has with him an earbud that allows him to tune into the thoughts of others around him, and that helps him navigate this strange old world. For a historian he knows very little about the past of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik and flounders around a bit in a good natured sort of way.
Riding an S-Bahn Os he secretly eavesdrops on the thoughts of his fellow passengers in a scene that anticipates a like one in Der Himmel über Berlin (1987). The scene is trivial in Os’s case but compassionate in Himmel.
Os meets his own grandparents and, well, there are repeated instances of mistaken identity that Shakespeare could have made amusing but here they are just annoying. At times Os lectures the 1961ers on the bright future of Communism which has transcended their current Socialism. He even sings a tune or two to prove it.
Surprisingly, to both Os and me, he finds evidence of corruption and incompetence in a 1961 state industry about which he does nothing, as far as I could tell. Even more surprising, no one refers to ‘comrade’ but rather ‘colleague.’