Metaphors
The boomerang, coffeemaker, magic set, keyboard and painting in Jasmin's room were all metaphors.
Can anyone help me figure out what the coffeemaker symbolised?
It's not a coffeemaker actually, it's a thermos, and not a metaphor, but a symbol, and one of the funniest of the entire film. It's the cornucopia of the goddess. The film plays with one of the most ancient narrative topics: a god or hero "out of nowhere" visits a group of human beings and changes their lives; after that he normally leaves and goes back to the unknown place he came from, but the lives of the people he stayed with for a while is never the same afterwards.
Percy and Eleonore Adlon's script goes even farther back: to the time when the visiting hero was a goddess (like Athena who came to the human beings and taught them how to tame horses, or in another tale taught them to grow olive trees; along the same vein is the story of Ceres who taught the humans to grow cereals ... and the like. Ancient mythology has a lot of them.). The symbol of the goddess giving 'presents' to the humans is the cornucopia where all the goods come from and which can never be exhausted. So there's your "coffemaker".
But the symbolism already starts with the title of the film: "Out of Rosenheim" = "out of nowhere" which is the unknown place of origin of the more or less divine hero/heroine (Brenda once refers to Jasmin's place as "out of nowhere" verbatim as Rosenheim doesn't mean anything to her). The fun is that Rosenheim is at the same time a really existing city in Bavaria and a "nowhere" for Brenda, plus it can be a metaphor of paradise in German. As the story of Jesus is the most famous of the set of stories of divine heroes visiting human beings, there are also details of this in the film, but as we have a female hero here, it also shifts the focus to Mary who on many paintings is sitting in a garden of roses, so there we have "Rosenheim" again. Jasmin's partly supernatural origin "out of Rosenheim" is reinforced by her reaction to the painting (or let's say the painting's reaction to her presence)in her hotel room: the 'supernatural' lights in the sky of the painting make the feathers of her ridiculous little hat swirl in reaction to the power of the light phenomenon depicted by Rudi ...
And more of this kind. It's one of the most amusing film scripts I know.
Regards, Rosabel
Hello, Rosabel, I am glad to meet you again! It's a long time I haven't seen you around.
I came to this board hoping to find a discussion like this. I love Out of Rosenheim and I have seen it several times, the last time was about a week ago. I was wondering if Rosenheim has a perticular symbolism for Germans. I can understand everything you say about paradise and a dictionary helped me with the meaning of the word (House of Roses?). But is there a particular tinge in the symbolism given that Rosenheim is a real (medieval, as I found out) town in Bavaria? Do Germans perceive the symbolism differently or it's only an insignifignant coincidence that the town exists in Germany?
Hello, dear Maria,
my comp broke down, so I am in an internet café right now (hate those places like hell!), therefore I'm just replying on the fly ...
That Rosenheim exists and is used in this film may partly be a private joke: Percy Adlon is a genuine Bavarian himself, there are some more little allusions to Bavaria in the film, and that Rosenheim can also be a metaphorical paradise, was a coincidence that came in handy, I suppose.
I don't think that Germans perceive the symbolism differently; except the allusions to Bavaria in general which will probably be regarded as a tribute to Bavarian patriotism, most of them won't notice that the entire film is a play with ancient myths.
Best wishes to you, hope I'll be online again soon with enough time for a decent reply! :-)
Rosabel
And as a cinematic device, the thermos points up the individuality of the characters. Jasmin's husband thinks the coffee is good. Of course, either he or Jasmin made the coffee that was in it at that point, but he doesn't know that. The next person to drink from it can't stand it. Jasmin refuses the extra water Rudi tries to add to the coffee from the thermos. When Cahuenga makes instant coffee in the thermos, Jasmin dictates to him how much water to add, ensuring it will be strong, like she like it. In this way, the thermos is not what's important as much as the coffee in it. It's an identifiable symbol of individuality -- we all like our coffee slightly different from everyone else. It also symbolizes the cultural difference: the Germans in the film like the coffee so strong the Americans can't tolerate it; the Germans and the Americans will have a hard time communicating and getting along (he types, as he slurps the dregs of a Belgian ale).
In the end, though the new coffeemaker is installed, Cahuenga is making coffee directly into the thermos. So, on another level, the thermos is change, the coffeemaker is the status quo. Cahuenga and Sal both point out the practicality of the thermos, but Brenda wants things to remain the same, she wants the new coffee maker. Sal can't bring the coffeemaker home; he can't maintain the status quo for Brenda, so he has to go. The sheriff finally brings the coffeemaker, but he can't do anything about the person who brought the thermos, proving the ineffectuality of the status quo, and the inexorability of the change Jasmin has brought. In the end, the thermos, Jasmin's thermos, the symbol of the change that Jasmin brought to the cafe, wins out.
Metaphorical enough for ya?
-EdM.
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
And the idiot playing with his boomerang 12 hours a day symbolizes the kind of morons who sit in front of computer monitors all day and night posting on websites. Oops...better turn this thing off and go to bed.
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