The Broken

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Movie
German title The Broken
Original title The Broken
Country of production Great Britain , France
original language English
Publishing year 2008
length 93 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Sean Ellis
script Sean Ellis
production Lene Bausager
music Guy Farley
camera Angus Hudson
cut Scott Thomas
occupation
synchronization

The Broken is a British - French horror - thriller from 2008 with Lena Headey in the title role. Directed by Sean Ellis , who also wrote the script. The plot takes up the well-known motif from films such as Invasion and Die Körperfresser of doppelgangers who kill people to take their place.

action

The London radiologist Gina McVey examined in the hospital X-ray photograph showing the heart of a patient on the right. Colleague Anthony believes the image is upside down, but it is a rare case of dextrocardia . The following evening Gina celebrates her father's birthday with her friend Stefan from France, her brother Daniel and his friend Kate. While they are sitting together at the table, suddenly a mirror on the wall breaks. The next day Gina sees a woman who looks like her in a car. She follows the woman to her apartment. Then she drives away in the woman's car and carelessly causes an accident. In the hospital she comes to; however, she cannot remember how the accident occurred because of a bruised brain. Stefan finally picks her up at the hospital and brings her to his apartment. There Gina notices that a mirror is missing on the wall, whereupon Stefan replies that he accidentally broke it. As Gina takes a bath, memories of the accident run through her head - until she notices that water is dripping from the ceiling. To find out the cause, she goes to the attic. Stefan suddenly appears there and tells her that he will check the roof for any damage the next morning.

Plagued by nightmares, Gina trusts the psychologist Dr. Robert Zachman and tells him that Stefan is not really her boyfriend. He looks like him, but he's not. Because she apparently suffers from Capgras syndrome , which he attributes to the bruised brain, Dr. Zachman told Gina to undergo further tests in the hospital. In order to fully restore her memory, Gina should also return to the place she was last able to remember. Meanwhile, Kate, the friend of Gina's brother Daniel, comes home and takes a shower. A mirror in which she had looked at herself shortly before breaks and in front of Kate, who is showering, suddenly her likeness stands, who immediately rams her fist into her mouth and kills her.

Late in the evening Gina visits her father John and tells him about her doppelganger, whom she saw shortly before the accident. Then Gina returns to Stefan's apartment and packs her things. She notices again that water is dripping from the ceiling. In the attic she finds Stefan's body lying next to a broken water pipe. She calls her father immediately. His likeness suddenly stands behind him and the phone call is interrupted. Fearing Stefan's alleged doppelganger, Gina locks herself in the bathroom and escapes through the window. From a phone booth she calls her brother and tells him that he is in danger and that she can remember the place where her doppelganger lived - on Pembridge Road. When Daniel tells her that it is her own address, Gina drops the phone and leaves the phone booth. Daniel, who had just returned to his apartment, finds Kate's doppelganger in the bathroom, who is in the process of scrubbing Kate's blood from the floor.

When Gina arrives at the apartment building on Pembridge Road, the doorman gives her a spare key. In the bathroom of her doppelganger, she first sees a broken mirror and then the woman's body. Shaken by the sight, Gina's memory comes back: Shortly before the accident, she faced the real Gina, put a plastic bag over her head and killed her in the bathroom with a sculpture. Realizing that she is no longer being followed and that she is the doppelganger herself, she calmly goes to a window and sees John McVey's likeness looking up at her from the street. In the hospital, she then studies an X-ray that was taken of her after the accident. Anthony sees the recording and says that she has another case of dextrocardia ahead of her. When the supposed Gina disposed of the recording in a shredder , Daniel stood in front of her. He recognizes the doppelganger in her and runs away in panic.

background

In The Broken is a free adaptation of the novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney , who has been filmed several times. While the doppelgangers appear as extraterrestrial invaders in the book and in other film adaptations, the origin and motives remain open. The only clue is that a mirror breaks before a doppelganger appears, which allows the interpretation of a mirror world with mirror people. This also explains the X-ray image of a patient at the beginning of the film who has her heart on the right side and thus mirror-inverted. Another difference is that the heroine herself was exchanged during the course of the plot, so she is an "invader" and not a hunted, but because of an accident she forgot to remember it.

At the beginning of the film, the last lines of the story Wiliam Wilson by Edgar Allan Poe are faded in; apart from the existence of doppelgangers, however, the narrative has nothing in common with the film:

“You have conquered, and I yield. Yet, henceforward art thou also dead - dead to the World, to Heaven, and to Hope! In me didst thou exist - and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself. "
(German: "You have won, and I lose. Nevertheless, from now on you are also dead - dead to the world, heaven and hope! You lived in me - and now I am dying, see here in the picture that your own is how you murdered yourself. " )

The Broken was filmed from November 2006 to January 2007 in London, including in the Bayswater district and in Greenford Studios. The film premiered on January 18, 2008 at the Sundance Film Festival . In Germany it was shown for the first time on February 10, 2008 on the European Film Market . In 2009 it was released on DVD and Blu-ray .

Reviews

"The psychological horror film, suggestive in terms of visual language and sound design, metaphorically develops an oppressively dark scenario of urban alienation, whereby it owes its horror not least to the deep insecurity that it expects of both its character and the viewer," said the lexicon of international films . Justin Chang of Variety described the film as "thought-provoking, atmospheric exercise in a sophisticated psychological horror".

For Anthony Quinn of the Independent , The Broken was an "incredibly sluggish British horror film" that prepared "some shocking revelations with eerie, suddenly heard music and ominous shots of the London skyline", but it remained guilty. James Christopher of the Times attested the film a "boredom" that was "almost as annoying as the sound effects".

Awards

The Broken was nominated for Best Picture at the 2008 Sitges Film Festival . In the Best Camera category, Angus Hudson won a prize in Sitges for his work on The Broken .

German version

The German dubbed version was made by Berliner Synchron . Sven Hasper was responsible for the dialogue book and the dialogue direction .

role actor Voice actor
Gina McVey Lena Headey Bianca Krahl
Dr. Robert Zachman Ulrich Thomsen Peter Flechtner
Stefan Chambers Melvil Poupaud Sven Hasper
Kate Coleman Michelle Duncan Anita Hopt
Daniel McVey Asier Newman Tobias Nath
John McVey Richard Jenkins Hans-Werner Bussinger
Anthony Damian O'Hare Michael Iwannek
Dr. Kenric William Armstrong Helmut Gauss
Mary Tara Hugo Gabrielle Scharnitzky

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Edgar Allan Poes William Wilson ( Memento from September 18, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) in the Gutenberg-DE project
  2. ↑ The Broken. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed February 19, 2020 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  3. ↑ “ The Broken is a brooding, atmospheric exercise in upscale psychological horror.” Justin Chang: The Broken . In: Variety , January 22, 2008.
  4. ↑ "This unbelievably ponderous British chiller keeps priming us for some shocking revelations - oodles of 'scary' incidental music, ominous shots of the London skyline - and signally fails to deliver them." Anthony Quinn: The Broken . In: The Independent , January 20, 2009.
  5. ↑ "The tedium is almost as annoying as the sound effects." James Christopher: The Broken . In: The Times , January 29, 2009.
  6. ↑ The Broken. In: synchronkartei.de. German dubbing index , accessed on February 23, 2020 .