Fenugreek (film)
Bockshorn is a DEFA film by Frank Beyer from 1984 based on the novel of the same name by Christoph Meckel from 1973.
action
Sauly and Mick are two teenage boys who live on the streets of a fictional country. Although not stated, the location suggests that it is an American town called Baan here. They feed on begging, theft and various trickery. Winter is over and they want to move to the sea about 1000 kilometers away to bathe. When looking for a means of transport, because you have no money, you come across the driver of an old truck who does not take you unselfishly on the loading area. Since there is still snow in the mountains, they should help with the sanding. For the night they stop at a motel where they order something to drink. Here a man who calls himself Landolfi comes to their table to convince Sauly that he has sold his guardian angel to a certain Miller from Prince. He wanted to scare him with it. When the bar owner locks the two boys in at the end of the day and promises them a sumptuous breakfast for the next morning, they are uncomfortable and flee through the window. The next day they only see the taillights of "their" truck, but they still make headway.
On the way, Sauly is suddenly plagued by a high fever. Mick takes him on his back and just manages to get to a lonely farm. Both are admitted there, Sauly receives medical care and food is provided. To compensate, Mick has to work on the farm and when he also saves a neighbor's cow from the swamp, he can even earn some money. But when Sauly is supposed to work on the farm after his recovery, they prefer to leave. During his illness, Sauly got the idea that he only got sick because he no longer has a guardian angel. And you have to look for it now. So the next destination is Prince. Here, however, it turns out that almost all of them are called Miller and react very darkly when asked about the Guardian Angel. So now it's on to Botango, to the sea. On the way they get to know Krogh, who only travels on foot, but from whom they soon part again. An almost deserted place in the mountains scares them because everything is very unreal here. For example, there is Viktor, a grown man dressed like a baby. So it goes on to the sea. Once there, they bathe intensively and do not notice that they are on private property. The owner has champagne and a snack, but then it's back on the street. Now they are taken by a group of teenagers who are occupying a house on the beach and having a big party.
Now it only helps to find Landolfi to get the Guardian Angel back. During a break in a club, they see a picture of him and learn that everyone in the area knows him and that he is always on the road. The two boys stand in his way when he approaches them in his car and Sauly demands his guardian angel back. Landolfi can no longer remember and a fight ensues, in the course of which Sauly hits a stone so unluckily that he loses consciousness. Landolfi doesn't help him and just drives off. Mick carries him to a wooden house and tries to look after him until he realizes that his friend has passed away. Instead of a funeral, he chooses cremation by setting Sauly on the wooden house and watching the flames from a distance.
production
Bockshorn was shot on ORWO color by the Babelsberg Artistic Working Group and had its premiere on March 29, 1984 in the Berlin Kino International . It was first broadcast on ARD on December 12, 1988 and in the GDR in the 2nd DFF program on April 29, 1990. The film was made with the cooperation of the Cuban Institute for Film Art and the Film Industry , the Bulgarian Studio for Feature Films and the West Berliners Manfred Durniok Production for film and television .
The main Bulgarian actors were dubbed; Djoko Rosić by Kurt Böwe and Anton Karastojanow by Rolf Ludwig .
criticism
In New Germany , Horst Knietzsch thinks that all sorts of irrelevant things got into the film. Fashionable frills are overgrown in places. Blurred flaccidity is philosophical. The analysis of bourgeois society, its ailments and internal laws with the means of art has been carried out more profoundly and sharply in many books and films, not least by American authors. Die Neue Zeit praised the two young leading actors Jeff Dominiak and Bert Löper, who were as well selected as they were convincing in their play. But the music is disappointing; there has Günther Fischer think not much, and in all modern conveniences Sound have had be content. Fenugreek turns out to be a film of great qualities, but also with some weaknesses that cannot be overlooked. He shows a world that is not without tempting charm, and he shows it as a world of human danger.
literature
- F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 83-84 .
Web links
- Bockhorn in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Fenugreek at filmportal.de
- Fenugreek at the DEFA Foundation
Individual evidence
- ↑ Horst Knietzsch in Neues Deutschland from April 16, 1984
- ↑ Helmut Ullrich in the Neue Zeit of March 30, 1984