Are there currently Albanians among the readers? Not. It’s good. This means. Actually, of course, it’s not good. But in this case it is. Because in this case it is about cultural appropriation. About appropriation of pretty much everything. But above all the supposedly Albanian. That doesn’t go well at all. And that’s how it happens.
We are in the German province. It’s no different there than in the American series, which is why – the first act of cultural appropriation – it doesn’t look very different in German TV series than it does in “Breaking Bad”, for example.
If the German provincial is particularly afraid of something, then – here the next appropriation threatens – of the Albanian mafia. Because brutal, strange, because unrestrained. Which is why German organized crime in the new Netflix film “Buba” pretends to be Albanian. But of course it isn’t.
A great idea. Find other petty criminals, who then also pretend to be Albanians. And under the franchise system, the fake fake Albanians pay money to the real fake Albanians. A dirty business. In a dirty movie. A very dirty, very funny film, because the whole thing with the fake Albanians is of course very funny (even for Albanians in particular). Like “Buba” anyway.
“Buba” would never have existed. If conscious Buba hadn’t shot his pear out of proven stupidity with a pistol from the 3D printer at the end of the first season of one of the most wonderful and internationally successful German streamer series. Which was actually only explainable with deadlines.
Buba was the village dealer and drug lord in “How to sell drugs online (fast)”. And Bjarne Mädel was Buba. He has quite a lot to do because he hijacks every film with his seabear-loyal look, becomes the melancholic heart of every film, every series as soon as he appears somewhere on the fringes. And that’s probably why he had to take the plastic pistol out of necessity and put an end to his drug lord career in the German hinterland. Which was universally mourned.
Which is why – in times when streaming services are building whole new universes around all their hit series stories, especially from previous stories – in times when streaming services, among other things, due to the need for falling consumer numbers – Buba couldn’t stay dead for long. And now he’s back. As a ninety-minute film with an option to extend the contract. If we didn’t completely misunderstand the finale of “Buba”.
To get his ex-girlfriend back, a nerd starts selling ecstasy online from his home and soon becomes one of Europe’s biggest dealers.
What: Netflix
The story tells how Buba – whose real name, we learn that very quickly, is Jakob Otto – could become what Buba was like in the end. From an almost Jesus-like bolt of harmony a merciless low mountain range gangster.
By the way, you don’t have to have seen “How to sell drugs online (fast)” to get the all clear. It starts right away with Buba’s self-inflicted end. And the at least brief mention of the juvenile trio that replaced Buba in “How to sell…” at the head of the local drug trade in Rinsel, a fictional backwoods town in North Rhine-Westphalia.
By means of virtuoso pill delivery in the dark web. A story that in turn was based on the true case of the online drug dealer “Shiny Flakes” aka Maximilian Schmidt, to whom Netflix later dedicated an extensive and rather harrowing documentary.
To get his ex-girlfriend back, a nerd starts selling ecstasy online from his home and soon becomes one of Europe’s biggest dealers. Things get even more complicated in the second season…
What: Netflix
“How to sell drugs online (fast)” was an almost quicksilver contemporary story in which young Netflix subscribers could find themselves including their drug and media usage behavior.
“Buba” is a film for their parents. A fairy tale. A fairy tale discourse. An exploration of Germany. Aesthetically stuck somewhere in the eighties with all tentacles of craftsmanship.
You have to have a pretty thick skin, be resistant to bad fashion sense, crappy glasses, scary banter, and be free from the horror of the lack of logic and the fear of cultural appropriation. But we already had that.
Little Buba, actually Jakob Otto, went through his grandmother’s steel bath. She loved the black pedagogy of the old German fairy tales, which always ended badly, such as Heinrich Hoffmann’s “Struwwelpeter”.
Life was just like that. For grandma. Everything always had to end badly for them. Because only if everything ended badly could something else turn out well.
Example: Jakob, meaning Buba, won a breakdance competition in August 1984 in Oer-Erkenschwick. Won against an American boy who was in the pot with his mother. The guy’s name was Leonardo di Caprio (the story is true, but the name of DiCaprio’s conqueror was Achim Schilling).
As a prize, Jakob was kissed by Jule. She was his crush anyway. Happiness was perfect.
Happiness was shit. When he gets home, there’s his grandma, the grandma from flagellant guilt complex hell. And she says she hopes he had fun, so at least it was worth the disaster.
There was (because of his luck, says grandma) an accident. The parents are dead. The brother, of whom nobody knows why he is called Dante, is in a coma with multiple broken bones. Dante will retain a limp and, due to a post-comatose cerebral confusion, a delightfully abusive Austrian dialect (which is necessary for the former Volksbühne god Georg Friedrich, the most strizzi-like of all strizzidar actors Dante can give).
How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast) is entering its third season. This is again about the student Moritz, who this time not only has to take care of his high school diploma, but also of murderous drug dealers from Amsterdam.
What: NETFLIX
And with Jacob there will be an almost Jesus-like damage to the roof. For Dante to do well, Jacob must do badly. His karma account has to be constantly in the doldrums for Dante’s to be in the black. He knows that, he takes advantage of it.
The Ottos have to think big, says Dante. And so that the Ottos can grow up, things have to get worse and worse for Jakob in the almost mini-series episodic drama (one could also call it the Way of the Cross or Passion Play).
Anyone who is already screaming cultural appropriation because the whole thing sounds like a script by the Coen brothers that has been forgotten somewhere in some hotel room is not entirely wrong. “Buba” is a dingy West set somewhere in the dingy East.
The fact that “How to sell drugs…” was at home with both feet in the back woods of the old Federal Republic is completely irrelevant for this crazy prelude. “Buba” has the dirty boldness that is inherent in all products from Bildundtonfabrik, Matthias Murmann’s and Philipp Käßbohrer’s Cologne-based new German manufactory for outlandish television stories. They produced Böhmermann, “King of Stonks” and “How to sell drugs…”
With a sardonic grin, they drill into the caverns of what is currently West German. Bad sparks they spray. They come across new evil fairy tales all the time. And if Buba hasn’t died… Hold on. He’s already dead. It doesn’t matter. His story will still go on. Ottos always have to think big.
