"Smog" is a West German German-language fake documentary movie from 1973, so two more years and this will have its 45th anniversary. The writer and director is Wolfgang Petersen who is known to audiences all over the world for the Oscar-nominated "Das Boot", another film about disaster and catastrophe. Then again, this is a bit of an exaggeration for this one here. The situation is pretty critical though. First of all, people need to make sure they understand that nothing of this is real. It may look authentic with all these studios and experts, but it is all fiction. There was no major smog problem in Germany in the 1970s. The cast does not really include many well-known names. The only one I have heard of before is Marie-Luise Marjan because of her long-time participation in the German television series "Lindenstraße". But it's also relative. There are no lead actors here because just like it is in every documentary, every protagonist only gets a small amount of screen-time really. This film runs for 85 minutes and that is indeed more than enough I would say. It dragged on quite a few occasions and really memorable scenes like the one at the football stadium are rare. Occasionally I felt as if some of the actors were amateurs as there were moments when it was obvious that they were saying lines that they learned before. Still, all in all, it looked relatively realistic. I would still not say that this was an interesting, scary or particularly memorable watch. Maybe Petersen just isn't my thing in general. I give it a thumbs-down. Not recommended.
Review of Smog
