Berlin Syndrome

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title Berlin Syndrome
Original title Berlin Syndrome
Country of production Australia
original language English
Publishing year 2017
length 116 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Cate Shortland
script Shaun Grant
production Polly Staniford
music Bryony Marks
camera Germain McMicking
cut Jack Hutchings
occupation

Berlin Syndrom (Original title: Berlin Syndrome ) is an Australian film drama by Cate Shortland , which celebrated its world premiere on January 20, 2017 as part of the World Cinema Dramatic Competition of the Sundance Film Festival and from February 14, 2017 as part of the 67th Berlinale in the Section Panorama was presented. The film was officially released in German cinemas on May 25, 2017. Berlin Syndrom is based on the book Berlin Syndrome by Melanie Joosten , which was published in 2012. The film and the book are about a young Australian photographer who comes to Berlin as a backpacker and after a one-night stand with a German finds out that he has locked her in his apartment.

action

The Australian backpacker Clare is on a short trip to Berlin, where she meets the likeable Andi and has a one-night stand with him in his apartment .

When Clare wakes up the next morning, Andi, the English teacher, has gone to work and locked her in his apartment. She believes it was a mistake and spends another night with Andi after he comes back home. However, it was by no means a mistake, as Clare first suspected, because the scenario repeats itself the next day. Clare panics because Andi is the only tenant living in the house, the neighborhood is deserted, the windows are made of safety glass and her SIM card has also disappeared.

Clare is trapped, and Andi just doesn't want to let her go anymore, because for him she is a kind of partner, about whom he even tells his work colleagues and his father, if not the whole truth. At the beginning he ties her to the bed, later she can move freely around the apartment. Andi leaves the house in the morning, comes back in the afternoon, sometimes he brings her flowers and small presents, and they cook and eat together, almost like in a normal relationship.

Clare tries to escape in the first few days - she plays with Andi's game and attacks him with a screwdriver at a favorable moment, but he catches her again. She soon discovers that there was another woman in Andi's captivity before her: She finds hair in the shower and finally an album with Polaroid photos of her in strange poses, like those Andi regularly takes of her.

One evening Franka goes to the apartment to find Andi's proximity. Andi warns Clare that he must kill Franka if she finds out about Clare. When Franka spots Clare briefly and Andi tells her that Clare is his girlfriend, she leaves.

Before Christmas Andi visits his father, who dies that night. Andi then stays in the house for a week. When he finally returns, he seeks consolation from Clare, who then also sleeps with him.

After Christmas, Andi takes Clare into a forest and seems to want to murder her from behind with an ax. But just as he is about to strike, a family walks by. Unnoticed by Andi, Clare seeks help from one of the children, but she doesn't understand English and is afraid of her. Andi brings her back to the apartment.

When Andi spends the Silver Star Night with friends, Clare manages to attract the attention of a man with a flashlight. He rushes to her help, but is murdered by Andi who happens to arrive and who blames Clare for his death. Andi disposed of the body.

Andi later sees a missing person report with Clare's picture in the newspaper. He asks Clare, on the pretext that the exterminator would be coming soon, to pack her things. Clare recognizes the danger and smuggles one of her Polaroid pictures in a tied position into Franka's class notebook. The next day Franka sees the picture and rushes to Clare to help, but she loses the picture that Andi and the other students find.

Andi drives quickly to the apartment, but Franka and Clare are no longer there. Clare locks Andi in the apartment. In the final scene, Clare drives through Berlin in a taxi and looks happily out the window.

production

Literary template

The film is based on the novel Berlin Syndrome , published by Australian author Melanie Joosten in 2012. In the year the book was published, Joosten was honored with the Kathleen Mitchell Award for best young author.

Staff, film title and cast

On kottbusser tor the first shots of the film arose

The Australian Cate Shortland directed the film. It is in Berlin syndrome after Somersault - How perfume in the air and lore about the third feature film by Shortland and after the latter, she turned in 2012 to the second film, which is based in Germany. Shortland had lived in Berlin for two years in the past and her children had gone to school there.

In the title of the film, Shortland refers to a modified form of Stockholm Syndrome , a psychological phenomenon in which the hostage victim develops sympathy for her hostage taker. The term Berlin Syndrome actually describes the Nijmegen Breakage Syndrome , which is a rare, congenital disease in which the repair function of the DNA is impaired. The consequences are chromosome fragility, delayed growth, a small skull and also mental development disorders.

Berlin Syndrome should also be explicitly a film about Berlin, according to Shortland, and on top of that she wants the film to be understood as a parable of the GDR , with Andi standing for the dictator who is building his own totalitarian regime, and Clare a symbol for the people in their ambivalence. It works well to write this parable, says Shortland, when the focus of the film is on a prisoner who moves between thoughts of flight, hatred and affection for the tormentor and thus shows behavior typical of Stockholm Syndrome. Andi, as he grew up in the shadowy utopia of the GDR, who is a product of his environment and becomes a dictator in the film himself, reflects the totalitarian state, according to Shortland, which he maintains in his "relationship" and he wants to recreate a utopia, but also himself and Clare. Conversely, in the film the prisoner had a romantic idea of ​​the GDR as a system in which people put up resistance, but she had no idea what it really meant not to get out of there.

The script adaptation of Joosten's novel was done by Shaun Grant , with Polly Staniford as producer . The development of the film project was funded by Screen Australia. Fulcrum Media Finance and Film Victoria & DDP Studios also helped fund the film.

The main role of the Australian photographer and backpacker Clare was played by Teresa Palmer . The German actor Max Riemelt can be seen in the role of Andi, who locks Clare in his apartment. Shortland said they chose Riemelt because there was no way you would trust him as a guy to do what he did in the film. Before shooting began, the roles were worked out for two weeks in an apartment with Palmer and Riemelt.

The young German actress Emma Bading plays Franka Hummels, a student of Andi, the German actor Matthias Habich plays his father Erich, who is a history professor at the university. Also German actors, Christoph Franken , Lara Marie Müller , Nassim Avat and Elmira Bahrami can be seen in other roles . Lucie Aron took on the role of Elodie Zadikan, the South African-born actor Thuso Lekwape can be seen in the role of Billy Dharma and Viktor Bashmakov in the role of Benni.

Filming and equipment

In addition to Berlin , the filming took place in the Australian Dockland Studios

The filming took place in Berlin and in the Australian Dockland Studios in Melbourne , where it started in November 2015 and ended there in December 2015. In Berlin, filming had already taken place from August 2015 and ended there on October 2, 2015.

In Berlin, the stations and trains of the underground and tram were used, and so the first shots of the film were made at the Kottbusser Tor underground station , in front of the backdrop of the surrounding buildings, a high-rise in Kreuzberg and in neighboring Friedrichshain, where Clare left the remains photographed the GDR architecture. Further filming took place at Bebelplatz and in the Tiergarten tunnel. The interior shots took place in an apartment in Prenzlauer Berg . At the end of the film, recordings are shown during a taxi ride past the Brandenburg Gate and through the Tiergarten, which Clare allows herself to recover from all the horror experienced in Berlin.

The area at Kottbusser Tor , which Clare explores at the beginning of the film and which Berliners call “Kotti”, is a special place for people, according to Shortland. Some consider it a non-place and criminal limbo, but for many young people, but especially young tourists, the Kotti turnstile is the starting point for Kreuzberg nights, where fun and madness are closely related. This was a suitable place for the onset of Berlin Syndrome .

Film music

The score was composed by Bryony Marks . The soundtrack for the film includes 17 pieces of music and was released by inSync Music on April 20, 2017.

Title list of the soundtrack

  1. Clare in Berlin (3:10)
  2. Streets of Berlin (2:08)
  3. Rooftop Sunrise (3:20 am)
  4. Thought You Wanted (feat. Erkki Veltheim & Zoe Knighton, 2:49)
  5. Get into Trouble (0:56)
  6. Make Us Dinner (3:18)
  7. Home Alone (2:02)
  8. Tourists (2:03)
  9. Hair (2:32)
  10. Hands (2:34)
  11. Outage (feat. Erkki Veltheim & Zoe Knighton, 2:52)
  12. Snow (feat. Erkki Veltheim & Zoe Knighton, 2:12)
  13. Fake or Real (3:02)
  14. One to Ten (2:14)
  15. Party (1:18)
  16. Happy New Year (feat. Erkki Veltheim & Zoe Knighton, 4:01 am)
  17. Out (feat. Erkki Veltheim & Zoe Knighton, 2:21)

Publication and exploitation

The film celebrated its world premiere on January 20, 2017 as part of the Sundance Film Festival in the presence of Teresa Palmer and Max Riemelt . From February 14, 2017, the film was presented in the Panorama section of the Berlinale .

In Australia, Entertainment One took over the distribution rights. In the UK, Artificial Eye took over the distribution of the film. In Germany, MFA + FilmDistribution brought the film to cinemas on May 25, 2017. Bir Film took over distribution rights in Turkey, Megacom in the countries of the former Republic of Yugoslavia, Falcon in the Middle East, Queen in Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia, and Yejilim in South Korea.

The film was released in Australia on April 20, 2017 and in selected US cinemas on May 26, 2017. The film was released in cinemas in the UK on June 9, 2017 , after having been shown at the Glasgow Film Festival on February 17, 2017.

reception

Age rating

In Germany the film is FSK 16 . In the statement of reasons for the release it says: “The film is told with many stylistic devices typical of the genre and, after a calm beginning, increases to a claustrophobic tension . The cruelty of the psychopathic perpetrator can overwhelm young people under the age of 16. Since the production largely dispenses with explicit depictions of violence, 16-year-olds are able to deal with these aspects. "

Reviews

The producer Polly Staniford , the actor Max Riemelt and the director Cate Shortland at the 67th Berlinale

The film has so far convinced 73 percent of Rotten Tomatoes critics .

Screen Daily 's Wendy Ide says films that dealt with women in captivity tended to take one of two approaches: either that of a horror film or that of a psychological drama in the manner of Lenny Abrahamson's room . Although Berlin Syndrome corresponds more to the latter than the former, according to Ide, the film has something very special because it not least gives the viewer an insight into the thoughts of a victim suffering from Stockholm Syndrome , which makes Clare equally strong her mad tormentor Andi as busy as she was with her escape.

Bryan Bishop of The Verge says more than anything, it is the back and forth between Teresa Palmer and Max Riemelt that makes the film worth watching. Noel Murray of The Playlist says, even if some might find the topic too gloomy, Berlin Syndrome is by and large incredibly effective and a film that on the one hand introduces you to innocence, while on the other hand trivializing evil.

Ann-Kristin Tlusty from Zeit Online explains that Shortland stages the horror performance of every woman who goes home with an attractive stranger: “She takes almost two hours to tell this story of an imprisonment, which is about power and abuse , Control and ultimately, yes, somehow also about love. "

Christina Bylow from the Berliner Zeitung explains about the film that Shortland consistently narrates from the perspective of the young woman. She also keeps an eye on her opposite pole, Andi, on his lonely walks and runs through the city, but she leaves his plans in the dark, and the English teacher only endures women over whom he has complete control. To relativize the film title, which refers to the Stockholm Syndrome, Bylow says: "Clare falls into the trap because of her innocence and longing for love, but she keeps her sense of self in every situation."

Ula Brunner from RBB explains what drives the two protagonists in the film: “Andi is a sociopath , a control person . It's about sex , violence , the idea of power and metamorphosis . Both characters refuse normality. Clare is looking for love, Andi is looking for perfection and control: he finds his dream woman in her and does everything to keep this illusion. "

Justin Chang of National Public Radio says that on the surface you could assume a highly polished B-movie, but the film is also a rarely seen psychological thriller that is not only tightly told and gripping, but also feels really exploratory.

Thomas Abeltshauser from Berliner Morgenpost says that the film begins as an excitingly staged thriller with a clever basic idea and complex characters and is vaguely reminiscent of the Kampusch case . However, as it progresses, the film becomes increasingly implausible and only produces clichés, says Abeltshauser.

Awards

Australian Academy of Cinema and Arts Awards 2017

Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards 2017

  • Nomination for best film

Dallas International Film Festival 2017

  • Nomination for the Grand Jury Prize in the Narrative Feature Competition (Cate Shortland)

Sundance Film Festival 2017

  • Nomination as a competition film in the context of the World Cinema Dramatic Competition

Web links

Commons : Berlin Syndrom  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for Berlin Syndrome . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF; test number: 166788 / K). Template: FSK / maintenance / type not set and Par. 1 longer than 4 characters
  2. ↑ a b c d Christian Vooren. 'Berlin Syndrome' in the panorama. Captured in Kreuzberg In: Der Tagesspiegel, February 16, 2017.
  3. ↑ a b c d Cate Shortland in an interview with Ula Brunner: I feel strange and familiar here at the same time In: rbb-online.de, February 16, 2017.
  4. ↑ Berlin Syndrome In: moviepilot.de. Retrieved December 17, 2016.
  5. ↑ Don Groves: Cate Shortland to explore obsessive love In: if.com.au, May 15, 2015.
  6. ↑ Kevin Jagernauth: Teresa Palmer To Lead Cate Shortland's 'Berlin Syndrome' In: indiewire.com, May 15, 2015.
  7. ↑ Cate Shortland's New Film “Berlin Syndrome” Starts Shooting In Melbourne ( Memento of the original from September 8, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / thelowdownunder.com archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: thelowdownunder.com, November 4, 2016.
  8. ↑ Cate Shortland feature starts Melbourne shoot ( Memento of the original from December 21, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: if.com.au, November 4, 2015.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / if.com.au
  9. ↑ Max Riemelt. Biography ( Memento of the original from December 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.maxriemelt.com archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: .maxriemelt.com. Retrieved December 17, 2016.
  10. ↑ a b When Berlin plays the main role In: Der Tagesspiegel, February 13, 2017.
  11. ↑ 'Berlin Syndrome' Soundtrack Released In: filmmusicreporter.com, April 21, 2017.
  12. ↑ Sheer beauty! Teresa Palmer shows off her post-baby figure at Sundance premiere of Berlin Syndrome In: dailymail.co.uk, January 21, 2017.
  13. ↑ Devan Coggan: Sundance Film Festival announces first wave of 2017 films In: Entertainment Weekly, November 30, 2016.
  14. ↑ 2017 Sundance Film Festival Printable Film Guide In: sundance.org. Retrieved December 17, 2016 (PDF; 17.8 MB)
  15. ↑ Devan Coggan: Sundance Film Festival announces first wave of 2017 films In: Entertainment Weekly, November 30, 2016.
  16. ↑ Press releases. Parnorama 67th Berlinale ( Memento of the original from January 27, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: berlinale.de, January 25, 2017.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.berlinale.de
  17. ↑ Melanie Goodfellow: Artificial Eye snaps up Palmer-starring 'Berlin Syndrome' In: screendaily.com, November 5, 2015.
  18. ↑ 'Berlin Syndrome' in Sundance In: mfa-film.de, December 1, 2016.
  19. ^ Berlin Syndrome In: filmstarts.de. Retrieved March 30, 2017.
  20. ↑ AFM First Images and Pre-Sales of 'Berlin Syndrome' In: international.memento-films.com. Retrieved December 17, 2016.
  21. ↑ Oliver Johnston: Berlin Syndrome In: theupcoming.co.uk, February 20, 2017.
  22. ↑ Andrew McArthur: Glasgow Film Festival Review - Berlin Syndrome In: thepeoplesmovies.com, February 19, 2017.
  23. ↑ Reasons for approval for Berlin Syndrome In: Voluntary Self-Control of the Film Industry. Retrieved May 24, 2017.
  24. ↑ Berlin Syndrome In: Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved September 17, 2017.
  25. ↑ Wendy Ide: 'Berlin Syndrome': Sundance Review In: screendaily.com, January 21, 2017.
  26. ↑ Bryan Bishop: The 'nice guy' becomes a horror movie monster in Berlin Syndrome In: The Verge, January 22, 2017.
  27. ↑ Noel Murray: Cate Shortland's 'Berlin Syndrome' Starring Teresa Palmer Is An Unbearably Intense, Slow Burn Thriller In. The Playlist, January 22, 2017.
  28. ↑ Ann-Kristin Tlusty: 'Berlin Syndrome'. No Stockholm in Berlin In: Zeit Online, February 17, 2017.
  29. ↑ Christina Bylow: [Cate Shortlands 'Berlin Syndrome' is not for cowards] In: Berliner Zeitung, May 25, 2017.
  30. ↑ Cate Shortland in an interview with Ula Brunner: I feel strange and familiar here at the same time In: rbb-online.de, February 16, 2017.
  31. ↑ Justin Chang: A One-Night Stand Takes A Disturbing Turn In 'Berlin Syndrome' In: National Public Radio, May 25, 2017.
  32. ↑ Thomas Abeltshauser: When the city becomes horror In: Berliner Morgenpost, February 15, 2017.
  33. ↑ AACTA Awards: Winners & Nominees In: aacta.org. Retrieved October 31, 2017.
  34. ↑ Jackie Keast: AACTA Awards 2017: feature films in competition and doco nominees unveiled In: if.com.au, August 7, 2017.
  35. ↑ Marc Lee: Announcing the Full 2017 Dallas International Film Festival Schedule ( Memento of the original from June 4, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: diff2017.dallasfilm.org, March 13, 2017.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / diff2017.dallasfilm.org