For the unknown dog

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Movie
Original title For the unknown dog
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2007
length 107 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Benjamin Reding ,
Dominik Reding
script Benjamin Reding,
Dominik Reding
production Benjamin Reding,
Dominik Reding
music Tom Ammermann
camera Axel Henschel
cut Heike Ebner , Dominik Reding
occupation

For the unknown dog is a German film drama from 2007. As with Oi! Warning, the twin brothers Dominik Reding and Benjamin Reding were responsible for the script, production and direction . It is her second full-length feature film and, after Frank Beyer's Trace of Stones (1966), the second feature film in German cinema history that deals with the reality of traveling craftsmen on the waltz ( years of wandering ). As a further specialty, the historical secret language of beggars and traveling companions, the so-called Rotwelsch, is spoken in large parts of the plot .

action

The concrete construction journeyman Bastian confesses to his friend Maik that he killed a tramp at a gas station, allegedly "just for fun". But the latter takes advantage of his knowledge and demands from Bastian to break into an ATM for him. Bastian is caught and is serving a prison sentence. On the day of Bastian's release, Maik again demands hush money. In order to escape the blackmail attempts, Bastian hides armed with a knife in the toilet of Maik's local pub to end the situation by force. But by accident, Bastian is seriously injured by a drunk journeyman with his own knife. The journeyman stonemason Samarit pulls the knife out again and thus saves his life. As a reparation, Bastian now has one wish. Bastian recognizes the possibility of fleeing from his blackmailer Maik and wants to be taken on a wandering tour.

First of all, Bastian is allowed to try out “Tippelei” for six weeks, then Festus' journeymen's brotherhood should decide whether he has proven himself enough as a journeyman and can stay with them for the traditional three-year journey or not. Festus provides Bastian with the stonemason Samarit, who is to accompany him during these first days of the journey and to introduce him to the hard "life on the street". But Bastian cannot cope with the rules and customs of wandering. Bastian fails miserably on the first joint construction site, the reconstruction of a church ruin: due to his inattention, Samarit falls from the church roof and is seriously injured.

While still in the hospital, Festus informs the dissolved Bastian that his wandering is over for him. Bastian fears that he will be at the mercy of his blackmailer Maik after returning to Wismar. He asks for a second chance and asks Festus about his own mistakes during the wandering. He then reported on his former hiking colleague Schmiege, from whom Festus had separated in an argument and who was killed shortly afterwards. Bastian gets a second chance and now has to go hiking with the gruff Festus.

On this wandering Bastian has to prove himself and learn that “being on the ball” has nothing to do with “coolness” and little to do with craftsmanship, but a lot to do with your own character, the ability to be tolerant and honest. Bastian travels with Festus from place to place, from experience to experience: With Inke, the daring tailor who wants to go to bed with Bastian and her boyfriend as a threesome, with Lemmy, the biker, with his jealousy and strong fists Bastian himself and himself Festus has to save and with the rocker bride Leila, who strips together with Bastian on the stage of a motorcycle meeting and who once loved Festus and still loves it.

Bastian is also changing externally. He has become like Festus' slain friend Schmiege. With Schmiege's old clothes that were stored in a Hamburg tailoring shop, Festus made sure that he and Bastian would like to resurrect his lost friend Schmiege a little to pay off some of his guilt. Festus Bastian even teaches Schmiege's journeyman songs. While walking together through an impenetrable, swampy piece of forest, Festus Schmieges whistles for him to play his favorite song: “When we were recently buried”. Bastian knows this melody - from the "bum" at the gas station near Wismar. Only now does Bastian realize that he killed Festu's best friend Schmiege at the time.

After a last joint visit to Leila and her motorcycle club friends, Bastian draws the conclusions from his finding: He takes off the traveling companions' clothes and confesses to Festus in writing that it was he who killed his friend Schmiege. After Bastian's initial escape, the two meet: Festus wants to kill Bastian. A bitter fight breaks out on the premises of the biker club, at the end of which Festus embraces Bastian exhausted and finally forgives him. At a subsequent journeymen's meeting, Festus even asked his fellow hikers to allow Bastian to join the brotherhood on a permanent basis. But Samarit found out that Bastian had a criminal record, which ruled out admission.

Festus cannot get over this defeat and ends the journey. From now on he works in Samarit's high-tech stonemasonry, disappointed, extinguished, sobered. Bastian, however, continues typing alone; he has become confusingly similar to his former victim, Schmiege. His goal: to hike further and thus continue Schmiege's broken life path.

background

Dominik Reding (director), Sascha Reimann (role: "Festus") and Katharina Lorenz (role: "Inke") during a shooting rehearsal.
Lukas Steltner (as a concrete construction worker Bastian ) during a camera test
Sascha Reimann as a traveling companion “Festus” during a camera rehearsal

The shooting took place from the beginning of October to the end of November 2005. The film was shot in seven federal states (North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, Thuringia, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , Brandenburg and Berlin), in over 20 locations (including in Wuppertal, Castrop-Rauxel, Essen, Herdecke, Hagen, Unna-Bönen ( Koenigsborn colliery ), Dortmund ( Westfalenpark ), Lippstadt, Hürth ( Feierabendhaus Knapsack ), Rhine-Herne Canal , Hattingen, Remscheid, Radevormwald, Finnentrop ( Lenhausen run-of-river power plant ), Diemeltalsperre near Marsberg, Maxhütte Unterwellenborn, Wismar , Bad Bramstedt, Poel Island and Berlin) and during a balloon flight over Luckenwalde / Brandenburg. Finally, another four digital shooting days took place in Stuttgart.

According to directors and authors Dominik and Benjamin Reding, the murder of the pupil Marinus Schöberl in 2002 by three young people in Potzlow was a decisive trigger for them to tell a story about how a young murderer dealt with his crime. Their film was about the question of how the young perpetrator, but also society, deal with such an act. When writing the screenplay, she was particularly interested in whether there could be other forms of atonement than the usual state instruments of a reformatory, juvenile prison and psychiatry.

In For the Unknown Dog , Sascha Reimann played his first leading role as a traveling companion Festus . In 2009 he was directed by Sven Taddicken in 12 meters without a head as a pirate bump and in Henna Peschel's thick pants again on the big screen. In 2011 he played the criminal Simon in the crime scene wedding night (director: Florian Baxmeyer ) . Lukas Steltner, who also made his debut as an actor in For the Unknown Dog , appeared in the 2010 ZDF productions Burn Out / Abgebrannt (Director: Suelbiye Guernar-Freytag ) and Kriegerin (Director: David Wnendt ) as well as in Stadt, Land, Fluss (Director Benjamin Cantu ) in front of the camera. In 2011 he took on an episode lead role in the ZDF crime series Stolberg in the episode Unter Feuer (director: Michael Schneider).

The German premiere of For the Unknown Dog took place on December 6, 2007 in the distribution of Senator Entertainment in Berlin in the Kant cinemas , on the same day the film opened nationwide in cinemas.

criticism

Like their debut feature film Oi! Warning , the Reding brothers' second feature film also received intense press coverage. The serious tone of the film, its unusual visual design, the acting and especially the portrayal of the gruff traveling companion Festus by the rapper Sascha Reimann ( Ferris MC ) were the focus of media interest.

The Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger , for example, states : “Dominik and Benjamin Reding also shot another dark, skeptical film with the unknown dog . A film, however, that brightens up again and again as unexpectedly as the face of the wonderful Sascha Reimann when, despite all the hardships of hiking, he conjures up the feast of life with a smile. "

Hanns-Georg Rodek remarks in Die Welt about optical design: “The eyes. Right at the beginning they pass when Bastian walks through a seemingly endless flight of doors and corridors. You can tell that the Redings have an idea of ​​what cinema is, of bold image details, of light and dark, of an ingenious color dramaturgy - and they will stick to this idiosyncratic visual language. "

In other reviews, For the Unknown Dog was repeatedly and explicitly compared with the debut film by the Reding brothers Oi! Warning and their crime scene Fette Krieger , (SWR, 2001).

The Tagesspiegel writes: “After their debut Oi! WARNING about the friendship between a punk and a skinhead and after a scene in the hip-hop scene , the Reding twins, born in 1969, are again focusing on style anarchy. Her road movie, self-produced without television participation, is a wild psycho trip, an extremely explosive mixture: rude types, wild cuts, bright colors and pyromania, the Middle Ages and apocalypse, Handel and heavy metal. "

Angie Dullinger compares the two films by the Reding brothers in an article in the Münchner Abendzeitung and concludes: “Her new film For the Unknown Dog is also a total work of art on the major themes of violence, guilt and atonement. Disturbing, mysterious and artistic, the viewer is drawn into a maelstrom from which he cannot and does not want to escape. "

The 3sat broadcast Kulturzeit summarized the reviews of the film as follows: “The Reding brothers tell their story powerfully and uncompromisingly, yet approach the actual topic of their film very carefully: guilt and atonement. Their masterful play with colors and assembly, as well as fascinating stunts - such as the meticulously staged fire and the explosion of the gas station - should also delight a younger audience. The excellent actors are also remarkable, above all the breakdancer Lukas Steltner as Bastian and the rapper Sascha Reimann alias Ferris MC as Festus. "

On the other hand, the specialist journal Schnitt comes to a completely different critical conclusion : “The Reding universe is one of the male societies where appointments are made with a handshake and breaches of trust are avenged with a fist. Here is not psychologized, but set. This can be found refreshingly anti-enlightenment, reactionary or simply under-complex. In any case, the two brothers have clearly shifted dramaturgically and formally, like a bodybuilder who can hardly walk because of all the strength and suddenly wants to do pirouettes. "

The lexicon of the international film judges: "Vivid, pulsating-passionate cinema about violence, guilt and remorse, which fascinates through its feeling for subcultural, anti-bourgeois ways of life as well as through its expressive staging and rousing performance, which is based on strong contrasts."

Awards

Exhibitions

  • 2010/2011 on film architecture in For the Unknown Dog in the AIT architecture salons in Hamburg, Munich and Cologne

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thoroughbred filmmakers , Coolibri magazine , issue 12/2007
  2. ↑ Frank Olbert: For the unknown dog - Am Abgrund , Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger , December 6, 2007
  3. ↑ Hanns-Georg Rodek: Out on the street! , Die Welt , December 6, 2007
  4. ^ Christiane Peitz: Hau weg den Teufel , Der Tagesspiegel , December 6, 2007
  5. ^ Angie Dullinger: So raps the Middle Ages , Münchner Abendzeitung , December 6, 2007
  6. ↑ Guilt and Atonement , Kulturzeit , 3sat , December 2007
  7. ↑ Mark Stöhr: Alone Among Men , film magazine Schnitt, issue Nov. 2007
  8. ^ Journal film-dienst and Catholic Film Commission for Germany (eds.), Horst Peter Koll and Hans Messias (ed.): Lexikon des Internationale Films - Filmjahr 2007 . Schüren Verlag, Marburg 2008. ISBN 978-3-89472-624-9 as an online edition
  9. ^ AIT , Zeitschrift für Architektur, Edition 06/2011, p. 139