Absurdistan (film)

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Movie
Original title Absurdistan
Country of production Germany , Azerbaijan
original language German , Russian
Publishing year 2008
length 87 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Veit Helmer
script Veit Helmer,
Zaza Buadze ,
Gordan Mihic ,
Ahmet Golbol
production Veit Helmer,
Linda Kornemann
music Shigeru Umebayashi ,
Lars Löhn
camera Georgi Beridze
cut Vincent Assmann
occupation

Absurdistan is a German feature film from 2008 by director Veit Helmer . Maximilian Mauff and Kristýna Maléřová can be seen in the leading roles . The film was made as a co-production with Bayerischer Rundfunk .

action

Aya and Temelko live in a remote village "somewhere between Europe and Asia". The two have been made for each other since their youth. They are waiting for their night of love, which Aya's grandmother will determine through the stars and which should begin with a communal bath. But nothing will come of it because the well is running dry. The men of the village are too lazy to restore the dilapidated water supply. The women do not want to accept this untenable situation: They go on strike and no longer let their men get hold of them.

The women pull a fence that keeps the men away from the women’s zone across the village and are also no longer ready for a lunchtime. Aya is on the women's side, Temelko on the men's side. He has to come up with something to save his love and not let the promising constellation of stars slip away. While the other men want to drive into town (and are prevented from doing so by the women) or are entertained by a juggler, Temelko only has the repair of the water pipe on his mind. However, he is hindered by the other men. Finally, on the last day, he goes into the cave from which the water pipe comes with a self-assembled equipment. He climbs into an underground cave under the village and blocks a water passage with a boulder. As a result, the water flows again and Temelko threatens to drown in the cave. At the last minute, Aya manages to remove the stone slabs from the village square and create an exit for Temelko. The women who left the village by bus are returning; Aya and Temelko unite.

background

One of the filming locations in Azerbaijan was Lahic.

In 2001, Veit Helmer became aware of a newspaper article. She reported that the women in the southern Turkish village of Sirt went on a sex strike because they had to carry water from far away and the men made no move to repair the supply. Helmer traveled to Sirt, interviewed some residents and heard contradicting claims. According to him, the scriptwriting lasted four years, during which he recruited three authors, Zaza Buadze , Gordan Mihic and Ahmet Golbol . While looking for a location that met his expectations, Helmer struck gold in Azerbaijan . The main location was the village of Lahic. There was no hotel in the remote, millennia-old town. To accommodate the 90-strong production team, Helmer gave the owner of a half-finished building ruin $ 5,000, who completed the construction; further rooms in the village were rented. Helmer had 2,000 candidates screened through agents and traveled to 18 countries to select the most suitable. The performers selected come from over a dozen countries. There was no sex strike after the shooting ended: Helmer counted 17 couples who got together, two of whom got married. The flooded, underground cave was a replica in an industrial wasteland in Tbilisi, Georgia . The settings in which Aya and Temelko float on a fountain were put together on the computer.

The place and time of the narration cannot be determined more precisely; it is only about sex, which does not take place. As a “film that doesn't fit into any genre drawer”, it is either denied any realism or described as “magical”. It has fairytale elements as well as slapstick. Another description was that of a “turbulent burlesque, somewhere between the boulevard theater and the films of Jean-Pierre Jeunet .” The actors act with exaggerated gestures and expressive movements as in silent films.

Arguments of criticism

Der Spiegel praised that the "director's wisp" Helmer told stories full of lust and imagination. Katja Reimann from Tagesspiegel founda “lovably absurd” storythat only lame at the end because of a cave scene that was too long. In some poetic and comical places, Helmer shows a personal will to style, said film-dienst critic Julia Teichmann. Hanns-Georg Rodek von der Welt liked the fact that the romantic-poetic moments and the enchantment were followed by an ironic distancing. taz author Wilfried Hippen found the characters likable, but the story was not thrilling.

The nature of the jokes was criticized several times. While Rodek thought the joke was partly successful, partly at the regulars 'table, according to Teichmann, the jokes did not go beyond a regulars' table level. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung complained that no idea was “stupid enough” for Helmer, the film boring and not funny: “The jury of the Bavarian Film Prize must have enjoyed 'Absurdistan' so much that it simply couldn't get around the special prize. A joke rarely comes alone. "

The visual side of the work attracted attention. Michael Ranze from epd Film spoke of imaginative and unusual camera positions, Reimann of carefully arranged images, whose impressive symbolism replaced words. Rodek attested that the director had a rare talent for narrating purely visually. It is a pity that he does not hold out in Absurdistan and uses narrative voices to convey unnecessary information that is already contained in the pictures. Teichmann found the pictures less unusual than in Helmer's earlier work in Tuvalu . "The picturesque appearance of the actors is obviously more important to Helmer than their acting talent," ( taz ), the ensemble is "secondary" ( FAZ ).

Many critics compared Absurdistan with the works of the Bosnian film director Emir Kusturica . According to Teichmann, Helmer's film is more harmless; for Hippen, the comparison turned out to be unfavorable for him, because “while the Serbian filmmaker can make full use of the rich folk mythology of the Balkans, 'Absurdistan' is a designer tale Mixture of German humor and a Kusturica burlesque, according to Rodek, “reaches its limits”. Michael Kohler, Frankfurter Rundschau believed that he “pasted the script together from the crumbs that fell from the table of film history”. The burlesque is uncomfortable, the fairy tale elements borrowed from Kusturica are painful, the Lysistrata implementation is flat and the love legends are “stupid”.

Awards

The film received a special award at the Bavarian Film Prize 2008 and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Festival . In 2008 the film won the German Film Prize in the category of best production design .

Review mirror

positive

Rather positive

Mixed

  • film-dienst No. 6/2008, pp. 48–49, by Julia Teichmann: Absurdistan

Rather negative

  • taz , March 20, 2008, p. 23, by Wilfried Hippen: No sex without water

negative

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Veit Helmer in his website
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h Julia Teichmann: Absurdistan . In: film-dienst No. 6/2008, pp. 48–49
  3. ↑ Silke Schütze: Absurdistan . In: Cinema No. 4/2008, p. 47
  4. ↑ a b c d e Wilfried Hippen: No sex without water . In: taz , March 20, 2008, p. 23
  5. ↑ a b c d Michael Ranze: Absurdistan . In: epd Film No. 3/2008, pp. 50-51
  6. ↑ a b c Katja Reimann: When wells dry up . In: Der Tagesspiegel , March 22, 2008, p. 22
  7. ↑ Der Spiegel , March 17, 2008, p. 143: Absurdistan
  8. ↑ a b c Hanns-Georg Rodek: Speechless in "Absurdistan" . In: Die Welt , March 20, 2008, p. 29
  9. ↑ a b Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , March 22, 2008, p. 37: Strong Tobak , drawn by "hjr."
  10. ↑ Rodek 2008, similarly also Hippen 2008
  11. ↑ Michael Kohler: Rain brings blessings . In: Frankfurter Rundschau , March 20, 2008, p. 42