"How to Sell" offshoot "Buba" - A girl's fairy tale full of wit and agony

One of the biggest roles of Bjarne Mädel (54) was the "crime scene cleaner".

"How to Sell" offshoot "Buba" - A girl's fairy tale full of wit and agony

One of the biggest roles of Bjarne Mädel (54) was the "crime scene cleaner". A comedy series in which he dressed in a white hazmat suit went to the site of a corpse to clean up properly.

One could say that the actor's new work is set in a similar subject, but earlier. If he shows up as Buba in the Netflix film of the same name ("Buba," available now), tattooed through and sporting a gorgeous plaice, chances are there's something corpse-like to be cleaned off soon. Buba can dish it out very well - and also take it in such a way that you can fear for your life.

However, the "crime scene cleaner" has nothing to do with "Buba". The cross-references to another series are much clearer: the film is set in the universe of the German Netflix hit "How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast)" by Cologne-based creative company bildundtonfabrik (btf), the first season of which started in 2019. At a ridiculous pace, she tells how a few students from the German provinces set up a start-up that will revolutionize the drug trade via the Internet.

Buba, whose real name is Jakob, was part of the first season. As a classic petty criminal, he is in control of the drug business in the fictional village of Rinsel and meets - that's no longer a secret - an inglorious end. He dies.

The film "Buba" is a spin-off, an offshoot that tells the backstory. How did the project come about? Well, by her own admission, Mädel also accepted the role at the time because it was clear that Buba didn't have to last umpteen seasons - at the time he didn't feel like another permanent role in the series. But then he upgraded the mustachioed gangster to a cult figure with his game. The idea arose to tell a little more.

The film now shows how Buba became the person you know from How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast). At the core is a consideration that gives the whole thing something mystical: Buba is convinced that something very terrible always happens when he himself is doing well.

Starting with his parents dying while he just won a breakdance competition. In order to prevent further trouble, from now on he gets into unpleasant situations, which he meticulously records in a book – his “savings book for shit”, as he calls it. In the beginning there are things like "leave sand in the butt crack". At some point, however, this dose is no longer enough. So Buba and his brother Dante (Georg Friedrich), who for complicated reasons speaks Austrian dialect, become part of a mafia around the patron Doro (Maren Kroymann), who constantly eats cakes.

Aesthetically and with its numerous bizarre characters, "Buba" could be located somewhere between a Quentin Tarantino film and the series hit "Fargo", garnished with a little retro charm à la "Stranger Things". And yet there is something very special about it.

This is mainly due to a motif that runs through with many references: the fairytale, the magical, in a very German, dark expression. It is not for nothing that the film is advertised with the phrase "Once upon a time". "In Germany we come from a decades-old storytelling culture in which the good guys were always the main characters," says producer Philipp Käßbohrer. “But in fairy tales – especially the old ones – the main characters are often the bad guys. They are about the witch or the wolf, around which large parts of the story revolve. And we found that totally fascinating.”

However, the tricks with which Buba and Co. got their strangely deformed faces are less magical. You just put rings in their noses. "It's no joke," says Kässbohrer. "This changes the entire physiognomy of a face."