Berlin Calling
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Berlin Calling |
| Country of production | Germany |
| Publishing year | 2008 |
| length | 100 minutes |
| Age rating |
FSK 12 JMK 14 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Hannes Stöhr |
| script | Hannes Stöhr |
| production | Karsten Aurich |
| music | Paul Kalkbrenner , Fritz Kalkbrenner , Sascha Funke |
| camera | Andreas Doub |
| cut | Anne Fabini |
| occupation | |
| |
Berlin Calling is a feature film by the German director Hannes Stöhr , who plays in the electronic music scene. Paul Kalkbrenner, known as a live act and producer, plays the leading role .
action
The Berlin DJ and producer Martin Karow, known as Ickarus, tours the dance clubs around the world with his manager and girlfriend Mathilde. He also wants to release his new album soon. To get through the days and nights, he takes stimulant drugs that he gets from his friend Pea. However, after Ickarus consumed an ecstasy tablet containing PMA at a performance , he suffered a drug-induced psychosis . He moves alone through the city, tearing his clothes off. The next morning, still on drugs, he had breakfast in a hotel, where his eating habits attracted the attention of the hotel staff. He was then taken to a mental hospital in Berlin , which seriously jeopardized the release of his album and his next appearances.
In the clinic he met patients called Crystal Pete and Goa Gebhard, among others. The doctor Dr. Paul advises Ickarus to take a break under her supervision. She emphasizes the voluntary nature of his stay in the clinic. Ickarus still wants to continue working on his album and has his notebook and MIDI controller brought to the clinic. He also leaves the clinic several times, attends events and continues to take drugs. Alice, the head of the record label Vinyl Distortion , cancels Mathilde's release of the new album. Ickarus then smashes her office.
Mathilde leaves the shared apartment and flees to her friend and club employee Corinna. After Ickarus noticed this and the tax office asked him to pay 25,000 euros in taxes, he tried to see Mathilde at Corinna's, but Mathilde didn't want to see him. The clinic director explains to Ickarus that he cannot stay in the clinic because he does not follow the therapy instructions and leaves the clinic without prior approval. Ickarus then persuades a civilian to be allowed to give a farewell party in the clinic in the evening , for which he orders prostitutes and gets drugs. The consequence of this is that he is referred to the closed department of the clinic.
Mathilde and Ickarus' father fight for his release. After his label picks him up again, Ickarus would like to release his album under the name Boobs, Techno & Trumpets . But the record company decides on the name Berlin Calling and a cover shoot for the album in the clinic.
After his release, Ickarus returns to his apartment, where he continues his work by the doctor Dr. Paul takes prescribed pills and sleeps a lot. But the record release is imminent and since his pills make him sleepy, he decides to take them off himself against the instructions, which, according to Dr. Paul could relapse. On the same day, Erbse, his former drug dealer, and Jenny, a groupie Ickarus slept with, visit him. They take coke in his apartment. Instead of being tempted, Ickarus dissolves all of the coke in a glass of cola and goes on promising to pay for it.
The film ends with parallels to the beginning: Ickarus hangs up in a club, then you see him with Mathilde at an airport.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack (with the exception of Sascha Funke - Mango ) was produced entirely by Kalkbrenner. The title song Sky and Sand was created together with his brother Fritz Kalkbrenner . Some tracks that had already been published before, including Gebrünn Gebrünn and Altes Kamuffel , were reprocessed as so-called Berlin Calling Edits .
Sky and Sand became a mainstream hit in the years after the film premiere, reached number 29 on the Media Control Charts and, at 129 weeks after Last Christmas ( Wham! ), Is the second-longest track of all time in the German singles charts . In Belgium the title reached number 2 in the charts.
background
Director Hannes Stöhr found the inspiration for his story in DJs who move around with record cases. He wanted to show the tough job of these people and portray a musician who is not a superstar. He began to write off characters of the generation 30 and over from life. At the end of 2003 he was looking for the right music for the film and found his leading actor Paul Kalkbrenner . Stöhr found a “clear structure, a good feeling for dramaturgy, a feeling for melody and a love of detail” in his music.
The two Berlin clubs Maria and Bar25 were used as locations . Other locations: the Alexanderplatz underground station and the Moabit health and social center.
In Berlin Calling , tragedy and comedy, for example in the scene when Ickarus is admitted to the drug clinic, are close together. To this Stöhr: “One could have told the delivery [...] very tragically, as a dead end with no way out. [...] But it was important to me that Ickarus had to fight now [...] He expresses the fight with the world in his music. And when there is hope, there is also room for comedy. "
The scenes in the clinic are very reminiscent of those in the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest . Like McMurphy, Ickarus is relatively normal in contrast to the other patients, there is one patient who does not speak, and Ickarus, like McMurphy, smuggles women into the clinic to celebrate.
criticism
“Hannes Stöhr manages brilliantly what no other director has done so well: capturing the experience of the Berlin Techno Nights. In the cinema seat, the viewer experiences a club night of music, hedonism and intoxication [...] Paul Kalkbrenner makes a sensational acting debut. "
"Anyone who has never understood the fascination of techno will see techno as music and maybe even as party culture with friendlier eyes after this intelligent film."
"As in his debut film" Berlin is in Germany ", Stöhr combines a documentary-trained sense of Berlin's attitude to life with the drama of an existence threatened with failure, with a tragedy that he repeatedly sheds light on, giving almost comical moments."
"The lively feeling of authenticity, which is particularly evident in the club recordings filmed in the original locations during regular parties, also distinguishes" Berlin Calling "from some genre-related works."
“Paul Kalkbrenner's wonderful soundtrack speaks a different language. Perhaps it is the most sentimental techno of all time, but it gives the film a nuanced emotional structure. And Kalkbrenner's restrained drama is equal to that. But also Rita Lengyel as a friend Mathilde cannot be overlooked. She is just as believable in her state of preserved girlhood. "
Awards / nominations
Anne Fabini was nominated for the German Film Prize in the category Best Editing in 2009.
The German Film and Media Assessment FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the rating particularly valuable.
Web links
- Official website
- Berlin Calling in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Berlin Calling at filmportal.de
- Thematic and aesthetic background information (pdf), film & curriculum from the Institute for Cinema and Film Culture
Individual evidence
- ↑ Age rating for Berlin Calling . Youth Media Commission .
- ↑ Chart summary "Sky And Sand" on charts.de
- ↑ List of long-running charts. Retrieved January 21, 2019 . on chartsurfer.de
- ↑ German chart blog on March 21, 2014
- ↑ Chart statistics for "Sky And Sand" on acharts.us
- ↑ a b c Interview with Hannes Stöhr on berlin-calling.de, accessed on February 9, 2009
- ^ Christoph Cadenbach: Techno film "Berlin Calling": Schizo in the disco. In: Der Spiegel . October 5, 2008, accessed December 27, 2013 .
- ↑ cf. German Film Award: An overview of the nominations at welt.de, March 13, 2009.