It’s immediately clear that O Palmenbaum is not an ambitious feature film. Its main purpose is to stage the bizarre adventures of the Treichl/Moor families, which the audience loved so much in Single Bells. And this, considered from this point of view, works, especially if one thinks that, compared to numerous other sequels, the structure of the previous feature film is never taken up, in order to create a sort of “carbon copy” of it.
India is the story of a great friendship. Of a friendship which is so strong that it is able to overcome any adversity. Josef Hader and Alfred Dorfer, for their part, have accomplished an excellent script, perfectly combining comedy and tragedy, in a deep and never predictable reflection on life, death and the importance of interpersonal relationships.
Although it presents quite a few problems, Single Bells – directed by Xaver Schwarzenberger in 1997 and co-produced by Austria and Germany – skilfully avoids all the rhetoric and cheap feel-goodism into which situations of this kind can easily fall. And it also does so without being afraid to “play dirty “.