The perfect secret
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The perfect secret |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 2019 |
| length | 111 minutes |
| Age rating |
FSK 12 JMK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Bora Dagtkin |
| script | Bora Dagtkin |
| production | Bora Dagtkin, Lena Schömann |
| music |
Egon Riedel Simon Heeger Christian Vorländer |
| camera | Moritz Anton |
| cut | Sabine Panek |
| occupation | |
| |
The Perfect Secret is a German comedy by director and screenwriter Bora Drachtkin from 2019. The ensemble film is a remake of the Italian film Perfetti Sconosciuti (for example, “Totally Unknown”) by Paolo Genovese from 2016, which has already been remade in numerous countries . It is about seven friends who over dinner together put their trust to the test by agreeing to share all incoming messages and calls on their cell phones with those present during dinner.
The tragicomic chamber play was produced by Constantin Film Produktion . In addition to Lena Schömann, Dahrekin also appeared as a producer. The shooting took place between January and March 2019 in Munich and Geretsried . Karoline Herfurth , Elyas M'Barek , Florian David Fitz , Jella Haase , Frederick Lau , Jessica Schwarz and Wotan Wilke Möhring were able to sign up for the cast . The nationwide release in cinemas took place on October 31, 2019. The perfect secret received mixed feedback from critics .
action
The married couple Eva and Rocco invite their friends to dinner in their Munich attic apartment. Before the guests arrive, therapist Eva and her adolescent teenage daughter Sophie argue after Eva found condoms in her pocket and confronted her . Sophie, who is on the way to meet her boyfriend Mike and who has an increasingly strained relationship with her control-addicted mother, sees herself being patronized by Eva again. Father Rocco, who can mediate between the two, is busy doing something completely different: While the hobby chef is busy preparing the food, he receives revealing selfies from a friend on his cell phone. Eva, who has been quietly watching her husband for a long time, is suspicious, but does not find out about it.
First, the couple Carlotta and Leo arrive. Leo, who put his career as a draftsman on hold in favor of his wife, who has been working in an advertising agency again since the twins were born, struggles with his fate as a househusband and full-time father. His wife Carlotta, on the other hand, feels pushed into the second row: The copywriter, who usually works late into the evening and is rarely at home, has a distant relationship with her children. The two are accompanied by Bianca and Simon. Unlike Carlotta and Leo, the animal homeopath and the bon vivant are freshly in love and strive for trusting relationships with one another. Bianca, the youngest member of the group, has only recently met Simon's long-term friends and occasionally feels laughed at by the others.
After the high school teacher Pepe arrives without his expected and supposedly ill friend Anna and has placed the telescope he had brought with him on the balcony to view the lunar eclipse announced for the night , the group takes a seat in the dining room. With Rocco's inedible food and lots of wine, the septet begins to discuss the issue of honesty in a lively manner. Without further ado, they want to put their mutual trust to the test and get involved in a game invented by Eva: Everyone has to share everything that goes in or out on their smartphone that evening, regardless of whether it is a message or a photo, with everyone present. While Carlotta and Bianca are immediately enthusiastic about the idea, the men are reluctant to agree to the plan.
What was initially supposed to be a harmless game among friends quickly causes a scandal: Leo, who is having an affair with a playground acquaintance, expects a revealing photo of him and asks Pepe to swap cell phones with him to cover up the matter. When Leo had to go to Pepe's cell phone in return, Pepe's contact, Hannes, answered, whose ambiguities suggested to the others that he was sleeping with Leo. While Leo's supposed bisexuality , which he does not deny with his friends for fear of his actual affair becoming known, meets with incomprehension, Carlotta falls from the clouds and gets drunk. When she then receives a clear voicemail from her colleague, she is forced to admit a drug problem with her friends caused by career pressure.
Pepe dissolves the farce when he confesses the barter and reveals to the others his homosexuality , which has been hidden for many years , for which he is discriminated by one of his parents at his school and for which he expected incomprehension from his friends. Meanwhile, Simon receives a call from his colleague, who tells him that he is pregnant. Bianca is deeply affected by the news and immediately breaks up with him. Eva, who is also having an affair with Simon in secret, slaps him in the absence of the others and does the same. The guests then leave the apartment separately. Eva and Rocco, who are left alone, seek conversation on the balcony and reconcile with one another - but without telling the other about their own affair.
Some time after dinner, Leo and Carlotta found each other again and also decided to swap roles: while he was pursuing a job offer, Carlotta now looks after the two children full-time. In order to prove their friendship to the offended Pepe, Rocco, Leo and Simon beat up the father of Pepe's pupil, who then gives in and settles the conflict he has provoked. The four childhood friends are reconciled and travel together. When the doorbell rings on the way, Rocco pulls out an old-fashioned second cell phone and confirms the other's affair with it. While Pepe, Leo and Simon try to snatch the device from him, Rocco throws the mobile phone into the Isar .
production
Idea and script
Dagtkin and Schömann were still in the middle of the preparations for the shooting of Fack ju Göhte 3 (2017) when they were offered the opportunity to realize an adaptation for the German-speaking film market. Dagtkin, who was looking for a more mature material for his next project after the Fack ju Göhte trilogy, was “immediately captivated” by the premise of the original. Dagtkin, Schömann and Executive Producer Martin Moszkowicz from Constantin Film took a look at the Italian model and immediately secured the rights for a German adaptation of the material. The project was first mentioned in August 2018 when Constantin Film announced that there would be a new feature film by Dierterkin in 2019.
For Dagtkin, who had previously only put original ideas on paper, The Perfect Secret was the first adaptation he realized. For him, however, it was already clear after viewing the original that he would not simply re-shoot Perfetti Sconosciuti , but would explicitly tailor it to a German-speaking audience. So he decided to focus on a much more contemporary interpretation of relationships and - unlike the original and many of his southern European adaptations in particular - to make the female characters look more modern on the one hand and the male characters on the other less macho-like. In addition, Dagtkin came up with other revelations and new conflicts for the characters and tried to create a dialogically pointed script with the intention of making The Perfect Secret primarily a comedy. Dagtkin allows himself to vary his characters even after the cast in order to be able to explicitly tailor them to the cast.
occupation
In contrast to Perfetti Sconosciuti , The Perfect Secret is characterized by a significantly younger and more prominent cast, whereby Dobile was able to gather many actors with whom he had already worked on previous projects. For the married couple Leo and Carlotta Keschwari, caster Daniela Tolkien was able to engage the two actors Elyas M'Barek and Karoline Herfurth , who had already appeared as a couple in the Fack-ju-Göhte films directed by Dierterkins. Jella Haase , known from the Fack-ju-Göhte films , also joined the cast. Dagtkin wrote their roles for them in the plan to want to work with the three actors again, so to speak. Frederick Lau had already worked with Dierterkin and Schömann on the feature film adaptation Turkish for Beginners (2012), while Florian David Fitz had appeared in front of the camera in the doctor's diary , which was produced from 2007 to 2010 and written by Drachtkin .
Jessica Schwarz and Wotan Wilke Möhring recommended themselves as part of their auditions during the casting process for the role of the married couple Eva and Rocco Koch. Schwarz, who until then had mostly embodied positive characters and described her role as Eva as the “ antagonist of the film”, admitted to having initially struggled with the character, but was given significant support in finding roles in discussions with Dobilekin. Her film daughter Sophie was cast with Emily Kusche , Möhring's daughter already in Christian Alvart's action film Steig. Not. Out! (2018) and is also the daughter of Frank Kusche, who had worked as an assistant director in Dodgekin's earlier films. Adriana Altaras , who plays Leo's mother, can also be seen in the side cast . Katja Riemann , Alexandra Maria Lara , Julia Koschitz , Anna Maria Mühe , Max von der Groeben , David Schütter and Kida Khodr Ramadan also have short cameo appearances as telephone voices.
Filming
The perfect secret was produced by Constantin Film . Dagtkin and Schömann also acted as producers. Nicole Springstubbe appeared as a producer; Christine Rothe was in charge of production management. The comedy received financial production and distribution funding from the FilmFernsehFonds Bayern (FFF), the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg (MBB), the Filmförderungsanstalt (FFA) and the German Filmförderfonds (DFFF). Filming began on January 18 and was completed on March 28, 2019. Before filming began, Schömann found the task of coordinating the shooting schedules of the cast in question to be the greatest challenge. Since the Kammerspiel required that all seven actors had to be on the set every day, it was hardly possible to plan blocking times during which they could have been available for other projects.
The main motif of the film, Roccos and Eva's old Munich apartment, was built especially for the shooting on a stage in Studio 12 of the Bavaria film studios in Munich. Original plans to shoot in a real old building had been discarded in advance in view of the size of the apartment required for the production and the lack of availability in the greater Munich area. Dagtkin called the possibility of being able to shoot most of the film under the influence of artificial light in the studio, regardless of the time of day or the weather, as "real luxury". In order to support the actors in their play, Dierterkin decided to arrange the shooting like a play and to shoot it chronologically as far as possible . In addition, there were extensive rehearsals of 40 to 80 minutes at the beginning of the shooting days. The recordings in the Bavaria Filmstudios were followed by additional days of shooting on various outdoor scenes in Munich, including Holbeinstrasse , where the Kochs' old apartment is located, and Habsburgerstrasse. In Geretsried in the Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen district , Drachtkin directed the opening scene of the film, which shows younger versions of the main characters at a campfire on the Isar 25 years ago in 1994 .
Production design and film music
In order to generate speed and rhythm, Dierterkin filmed a comparatively large amount of material in a multitude of settings and axes. Since all seven main roles can be seen in almost every scene, he wanted to keep the possibility open of being able to focus on one of the seven roles at any time when editing. The camera was taken over by Moritz Anton , with whom Dagtkin had also already worked at Fack ju Göhte . Together they decided "for a timelessly classic, but also modern and inviting look", which required a complex and lavishly designed lighting concept, which significantly influenced the atmosphere during the shooting through certain lighting situations. In order to underline the more mature staging of the film, Drachtkin and his crew also opted for muted and pastel colors for the equipment, which should stand in stark contrast to the colorful scenes of the Fack ju Göhte films.
Also unlike Fack ju Göhte , the filmmakers decided not to show incoming SMS or WhatsApp messages in the current cinema picture. Dagtkin found that animations were at the expense of authenticity and that the viewer would be suggested to be closer to the circle of friends if - like all the characters present - he could initially only guess what the display was showing from the reactions of the reading characters. Images of the blood moon that occurs during the plot are taken from the lunar eclipse on July 27, 2018 . The film shows shots from Cairo and Cape Town that were made especially for The Perfect Secret . For the score composed especially for the film by Egon Riedel , Simon Heeger and Christian Vorländer , a restrained, subtle concept was pursued, which was only intended to have an accompanying effect on the dialogues. Great importance was attached to the individual noises and ring tones of the respective characters.
reception
criticism
Wolfgang Höbel from Spiegel found that The Perfect Secret was an "often very funny comedy" that was "also clever digital criticism". For an “entertainment product with the impression of an advertising clip”, the “educational film presented a surprising message”, which was accompanied by “astonishing didactic intentions” but did not change the otherwise “exhilarating effect”. Dagtkin succeeds especially in "nice moments" when "he cares less about the (mostly sexual) needs and secrets of those involved, but more about the disappointment that arises from the little lies between friends and lovers".
Margret Köhler of the Abendzeitung described the production as “not always cliché-free chamber play”, which often reminds of Doris Dörrie's drama Nackt (2002) and whose exposure works “on an emotional level, and all the more violently”. Daring is Dagtkin's “approach to homophobic behavior and the old- fashioned prejudices” with which the character Simon comes out “as a philistine”. “Accentuated dialogues and bizarre puns during small talk, situation comedy and screwball elements” hit the mark. People like to watch “the super-cranked actors” - even if the viciousness of the film gives way to banality at the end.
Feuilleton -Redakteurin Julia Bahr wrote in her review in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that the scenario of the film was "so enticing, simple and at the same time exciting," "there are certainly groups of friends who are try it yourself." Who has which secret in the film is “not particularly interesting” - the real tension arises “through mutual distrust, through the evil looks, through the hissed comments”. Above all, Karoline Herfurth lets herself go wonderfully in her “game. But although plenty of secrets are revealed, this chamber play lacks the human abyss ”.
Filmstarts reviewer Christoph Petersen compared the production with Sönke Wortmann's The First Name (2018) and judged that The Perfect Secret was "at least moderately entertaining for a long time despite constructed twists and turns and not very natural dialogues [...]." The fact that “you can still look at it quite well” is due “mainly to the top-class ensemble, from which, however, no one can make a lasting impression”. Petersen criticized Dagtkin's decision in particular for an "extra, well-bent person who literally reduced the entire film to absurdity on the home straight" and turned out to be "toothless". Petersen also described the film as a "banal tabloid piece with a rather questionable moral" due to its ending that differs from the Italian original.
YouTube film critic Dominik Porschen also stumbled upon this : "Here, feel-good sugar is simply poured over it." He criticized Dahrekin's handling of the homophobia of several of his characters, which differs from the original, and says: "This film hurt me personally." Sidney Schering also took offense at how Dobilekin resolved the double standards of the characters and found that the film could be accused of "an uptight, regressive, homophobia-ridden and dusty worldview". Meanwhile, he positively emphasized Florian David Fitz's play, which is why he came to the verdict: "If it weren't for Florian David Fitz, who gives this material his mimic passion, the perfect secret would be the most annoying film of the year." Wolfgang M. Schmitt from Die Filmanalyse presented the film in contrast to the Italian and French versions as "misogynistic and gay" out.
Kerstin Decker from Tagesspiegel found that the starting position of the film was not particularly strange and that The Perfect Secret looked more like a "mistaken comedy from the day before yesterday for the digital age". The film lacks Dodgekin's “anarchic joke” from earlier productions such as Turkish for Beginners and shows more laughter on the screen than it can generate in the audience. The film is a " retreat , but not a successful one" and underlines once again that "the genre other-people-eat-and-we-watch-[...] has never been one of the most grateful in cinema". Only the "momentum of an evening's derailment sometimes becomes almost haunting".
Gross profit
On August 18, 2019, Constantin Film published the first teaser for the film. The premiere was on October 21, 2019 in the Mathäser-Filmpalast in Munich . According to press reports, the production attracted more than one million visitors at the end of the first demonstration weekend. The perfect secret was the most successful theatrical release of a German film in 2019. The film had over 5 million admissions and grossed around 44 million euros in Germany.
Awards
In 2019 The Perfect Secret was awarded the Bambi in the "Film National" category. A year later, Dagtkin's directorial work was in the preselection for the German Film Award 2020 , but was not taken into account when the regular nominations were announced. Nevertheless, The Perfect Secret was awarded the special prize for the most popular film . As part of the Romy Awards 2020 , the production was honored with the Academy Award.
Web links
- The perfect secret in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Official page for the film
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for The Perfect Secret . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF; test number: 194193 / K).
- ↑ Age rating for The Perfect Secret . Youth Media Commission .
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae press issue . Constantin Film. Retrieved November 2, 2019.
- ↑ Alexander Friedrich: New film by the "Fack ju Göhte" maker will be released in 2019 In: filmstarts.de on August 17, 2018, accessed on March 9, 2019.
- ^ Wolfgang Höbel: Fack ju smartphone . In: Spiegel.de . Retrieved November 2, 2019.
- ↑ Margret Köhler: "The perfect secret": Cell phone out, pants down . In: evening newspaper . Retrieved November 2, 2019.
- ↑ Juia Bähr: Chocolate Chicken and Soul Striptease . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . Retrieved November 2, 2019 .
- ↑ Christoph Petersen: Critique of the FILMSTARTS editorial team: New end, new problems. In: filmstarts.de . Retrieved November 2, 2019 .
- ↑ THE PERFECT SECRET | Review & criticism including trailer German German. Accessed November 2, 2019 (German).
- ↑ The perfect secret. October 25, 2019, accessed on November 2, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Misogynist & gay-hostile: THE PERFECT SECRET - criticism & analysis. In: The film analysis. November 3, 2019, accessed November 8, 2019 .
- ↑ Kerstin Decker: Our hearts in the middle of the table. In: Tagesspiegel . Retrieved November 2, 2019 .
- ↑ Philipp Crone: A film showing close to the belt. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . October 22, 2019, accessed October 22, 2019 .
- ↑ «The perfect secret»: one million moviegoers. In: The world . November 5, 2019, accessed November 5, 2019 .
- ↑ The perfect secret. Accessed January 21, 2020 .
- ↑ Christoph Silber: ROMY despite (t) Corona: A TV evening of surprises and emotions. In: Kurier.at . May 12, 2020, accessed May 12, 2020 .
- ↑ Christoph Silber: Blood and Games: The special prices of the ROMY 2020. In: Kurier.at . May 12, 2020, accessed May 12, 2020 .