Brick (film)

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Movie
German title Brick
Original title Brick
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2005
length 110 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Rian Johnson
script Rian Johnson
production Ram Bergman ,
Mark G. Mathis
music Nathan Johnson
camera Steve Yedlin
cut Rian Johnson
occupation
synchronization

Brick is a 2005 American teen noir film and the first feature film by director Rian Johnson . The film received the jury's special prize for originality at the Sundance Film Festival 2005. It premiered in Germany on September 21, 2006.

In the drug scene, the term “brick” means heroin pressed into brick form .

action

Brendan Frye, a loner at San Clemente High School in the coastal town of San Clemente , California , receives a disturbed phone call from his ex-girlfriend Emily saying they are called "Brick", "Tug" and "Pin" ( Pen) ​​mentioned. When a car sped past his phone booth, from which a cigarette butt with an arrow as a logo was thrown, she hastily ended the conversation.

Firmly convinced that Emily needs his help, he tries to talk to her, but she refuses him. He investigates himself and finds her dead a day later. He's still not hiding Emily's corpse over her in order to leave the police out for the time being. With the help of his friend "Brain" he wants to find the culprits in Emily's death and avenge her.

He interferes in the local drug scene (young people from the upper class) and uses his knowledge of their habits, in which he was apparently once more entangled. He sets it up on a meeting with the underworld boss, known only as "Pin". He gets to know the violent "Tug" (who works for Pin), the drug addict Dode and the manipulative Laura, who advertises Brendan intensely.

As a double agent, he offers his services to both his school principal in return for cover and the pin. The former pressures Brendan to deliver him to the police as a whipping boy if he doesn't bring any culprits. During his investigations he comes across entanglements around heroin pressed into brick form, called "Brick". One of these bricks was stolen from Pin but later reappeared with toxic chemicals stretched.

In revenge, Dode, who was in love with Emily himself and who had watched Brendan hide the body, tried to blackmail him. When Brendan intercepts him before meeting Pin and Tug, Dode reveals that Emily was pregnant. Dode sees Brendan's alleged murder motive in this, since he considers himself the father and believes that Brendan could not have endured this. At the subsequent meeting, however, Tug - also in the belief that he is the father - turns out to be Emily's real murderer and shoots Dode convinced that he wants to betray him.

Pin and Tug then split up and become adversaries in an impending gang war. Brendan organizes a meeting under the pretext of arbitration, but with a plan to betray both of them. Laura, who spends one night with Brendan, tries to keep him away from this meeting. In doing so, she leaves a cigarette in his ashtray with an arrow printed on it. He recognizes Laura as the mastermind behind the whole thing, but is initially silent.

When Pin accuses Tug of stealing the brick at the meeting, the situation escalates. Tug and Pin as well as other people are killed, Brendan is able to escape.

The next day he meets with Laura and confronts her with the truth that he has already conveyed in a letter to the school principal and the police. She bitterly reveals that Emily was four months pregnant, which points to Brendan as the father. The latter remains shaken and withholds her last words from the Brain to be pushed, while he looks after Laura who is leaving.

production

Rian Johnson wrote the script in 1997 after graduating from the USC School of Cinematic Arts . However, it took six years to fund the project. Nobody wanted to invest in a debuting director in an unknown genre. Eventually, Johnson raised the $ 450,000 budget from family and friends.

Filming took place in San Clemente, California, within twenty days. The high school the film is set at is the former school of Rian Johnson . The cameraman was Steve Yedlin , Johnson's former classmate who had been involved since the script was completed. Johnson edited the footage at home on his own PC.

Rian Johnson's cousin Nathan Johnson composed the score with support from The Cinematic Underground . The soundtrack is strongly reminiscent of the classic film noir atmosphere.

synchronization

The German synchronization was based on a dialog book and directed by Lutz Riedel on behalf of Scalamedia .

role actor Voice actor
Brendan Frye Joseph Gordon-Levitt Vanya Gerick
Laura Nora Zehetner Sarah Riedel
The Pin Lukas Haas Tobias Kluckert
Trugger Noah Fleiss David Turba
Brain Matt O'Leary Konrad Bösherz
Emily Kostich Emilie de Ravin Julia Kaufmann
Dode Noah Segan Matthias Deutelmoser
Vice Principal Gary Trueman Richard Roundtree Engelbert von Nordhausen
Kara Meagan Good Diana Borgwardt
Brad Bramish Brian J. White Julien Haggège
Pins mother Reedy Gibbs Sonja German

publication

Brick was first screened on January 21, 2005 at the Sundance Film Festival , where it won the Special Jury Prize. On April 7, 2006 it was shown in a few selected cinemas in the USA. The film celebrated its German premiere on July 21, 2006 at the Munich Fantasy Film Festival. It appeared in Swiss cinemas on September 14, 2006 and in German cinemas on September 21.

reception

At the box office, the film grossed $ 4.2 million, nearly ten times the production budget.

Carsten Baumgardt wrote on Filmstarts.de: “'Brick' is delightful proof of how great cinema can be in its original state - without a fearful, profitable studio on the back of your neck that grinds every little corner and edge until none of the 8 can swallow up to 88 years more at the cinematic gourmet meal. The cynical, laconic hardboiled thriller is superbly staged, a bold venture that may not please everyone, but whoever gets involved will be rewarded with one of the most extraordinary, coolest, most entertaining ... and last but not least, the most original films of the season. "

Daniel Bickerman on Schnitt.de has a similar opinion: “In short: everything is right here. That was probably also what the gentlemen from the Sundance Festival thought, who decorated Brick with the special prize of the jury and thus made official again what should be said here quite subjectively: Brick is one of the best films of the year, and film noir is alive and well the best of health. "

The filmdienst however, might recognize a discrepancy between the form and content of the film: " A film in the style of a Dashiell Hammett adaptation, which has a classic film noir all set pieces, clichés and plot elements, at the same time acts as the unsatisfactory travesty because the presented emotional worlds and poses do not really want to match the young protagonists. "

Awards

The film received the following awards:

He was also nominated for the Grand Jury Prize of the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, the Satellite Award 2005 for Best Original Grades, the Online Film Critics Society Award 2007, the British Independent Film Award for Best Foreign Independent Film and a few others.

Aftermath

Brick soon achieved cult status and shaped a new variety of neo noir , in which elements of classic film noir are set in an environment typical for teen movies. Together with Veronica Mars , Brick became the first productions to be counted in the “teen noir” genre. However, the term was later extended to earlier films.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for Brick . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , August 2006 (PDF; test number: 107 217 K).
  2. ^ Interview with Rian Johnson on April 19, 2006 ( Memento from March 11, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ a b Drugsy Malone. In: The Telegraph. April 30, 2006, accessed January 16, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Brick in the German synchronous file
  5. ^ Brick (2006). In: The Numbers. Retrieved January 16, 2020 .
  6. ^ Carsten Baumgardt: Brick. In: Filmstarts.de. Retrieved August 29, 2016 .
  7. ↑ Daniel Bickermann: An old school hero. In: cut . Retrieved August 29, 2016 .
  8. ↑ Brick. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  9. ↑ Anja Christine Rørnes Tucker: TEEN NOIR. A Study of the Recent Film Noir Revival in the Teen Genre . May 2008 ( PDF [accessed January 16, 2020]).