German Angst (film)

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Movie
Original title German fear
German-Angst-Logo.jpg
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2015
length 107 minutes
Age rating FSK 18
Rod
Director Jörg Buttgereit
Michal Kosakowski
Andreas Marschall
script Jörg Buttgereit
Goran Mimica
Michal Kosakowski
Andreas Marschall
production Michal Kosakowski
music Fabio Amuri
camera Sven Jakob-Engelmann
cut Michal Kosakowski
Andreas Marschall
occupation

Andreas Marschall, Michal Kosakowski and Jörg Buttgereit; Director

German Angst is a German horror - Independent Film from the year 2015. The episode film includes three stories Final Girl (written and directed by Jörg Buttgereit ), Make a Wish (directed by Michal Kosakowski , screenwriter Goran Mimica ) and Mandrake (Director: Andreas Marschall ).

action

Final girl

The first story takes place in a neglected apartment in Berlin. The nameless protagonist, a young girl, pats a guinea pig and tells about its behavior and that the animals don't like being petted at all. Then she fetches poultry shears from the kitchen and goes into her father's bedroom, who is tied up on the bed. While reflecting on the castration of her guinea pig, she cuts off her father's penis with poultry shears. She then packs her suitcase. Before she leaves the apartment, she chops up her father with an electric bread knife. When she then leaves the apartment, one sees the uninjured father watching her.

Make a wish

The deaf and mute couple Jacek and Kasia are walking through an abandoned industrial site. In sign language , Jacek tells of an incident from the Second World War . When his grandmother's village is stormed and wiped out by SS troops , his grandmother is said to be killed too. With the help of an amulet , however, she apparently succeeds in exchanging the soul of SS officer Wolf for that of her father. "Wolf" first kills her father, but then all the other SS men as well.

Jacek is just about to continue the story when Nazi skinheads appear around the leader Jens and the British Darren. They begin to torture the couple and seriously injure Kasia. With the last of her strength she takes out the amulet, and apparently she can use it to send Jacek into Jens' body and vice versa. "Jens" first has to find his way around his new language, while "Jacek" tries desperately to convince his comrades that he is really Jens. Now “Jacek's” martyrdom begins. He is tortured and sustained numerous injuries. He is then locked in a storage room. When Kasia asks "Jens" in sign language what he is doing and tells him that he has a choice, he replies in sign language that he has none. The film switches back to the previous story: SS man Wolf kills Kasia's grandmother's father, and the SS men, still alive, leave the shocked girl behind. Jacek is mocked one last time, doused with gasoline and then burned. The skinheads leave Kasia dying. One of them returns shortly afterwards and steals the amulet.

Mandrake

The successful scene photographer Eden has just had a failed relationship with the jealous Maya. Looking for distraction, he wanders around dubious chat rooms and meets "Snow White" there. The two meet in a scene club. In the club, however, Eden meets Kira, with whom he instantly falls in love. The two dance and consume drugs. When Eden tries to satisfy her orally in the toilet, Kira jumps up and leaves the club. He followed his beloved to a Berlin villa. There he asked to be admitted, but was informed by an elderly man that it was a private club. To become a member, Eden must unconditionally obey the host. Membership is not reversible. After a moment's hesitation, Eden agrees and joins the club. He receives a collar that acts as a club card, and it is explained that the club members a drink based on Mandrake is administered. This is said to increase sexual desire. Eden can be chained to a table and blindfolded. After he is given the potion, he will have a sexual arousal experience.

The next morning he's addicted. He keeps coming back to the club, but one day Kira is no longer there. He tries to confront her, and she gives him the tip to take off the blindfold in secret. He does so at his next meeting, and a monster scratches his stomach. Then he goes back to Kira, who is sitting in the bath tub after attempting suicide with pills. When Eden tries to save her, she kills herself with broken pieces of a wine glass. Shortly afterwards Maya knocks on his door again and the two make up. But Eden is still addicted to mandrake. Maya takes the chain and offers herself to Eden. The two sleep together, but Eden has a bad flashback . When he wakes up the next morning, he notices that he has strangled Maya.

production

German Angst goes back to an idea by Andreas Marschall, who was asked about Jörg Buttgereit's whereabouts at various festivals. Against the background of new horror anthologies such as The ABCs of Death , he had the idea of ​​making such a film with purely German participation. Buttgereit agreed and a little later he met Michal Kosakowski while shooting Zero Killed in Transylvania . So the third director came on board. The realization of the film, which was partly financed by Kickstarter.com , took almost two years.

The film title reinterprets the political catchphrase German fear . The film should contain as few clichés as possible. The filmmakers tried to place the film in the tradition of German genre cinema of the 1920s and 1930s and to recall the radical, expressionist works of Robert Wiene , Fritz Lang and Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau . Kosakowski's episode, in particular, pays homage to the writer Hanns Heinz Ewers and his novel Alraune. The story of a living being .

The directors gave each other freedom in realizing their projects. The triptych is based on real news reports of the time. The city of Berlin is the only link between the independent episodes of the film. While Buttgereit's episode works as a chamber play in a small apartment and was implemented on a very low budget, the action in Koslowski's episode takes place in a disused meat factory in Berlin-Lichtenberg . The ambience and equipment of the episode Alraune , which was staged most elaborately, are reminiscent of Berlin in the years of change, with the illegal clubs of the 1990s techno scene such as the Tresor or the Reichsbahnbunker Friedrichstrasse .

The filmmakers supported each other. They worked with the same team and filmed footage with the Super 8 camera for the behind-the-scenes feature. They are also represented in some episodes with cameo appearances .

publication

The film premiered on January 24, 2015 at the Rotterdam International Film Festival . The film was shown in a small cinema, and the audience is said to have reacted very irritated. One visitor wanted to attack director Michal Kosakowski when his episode was being broadcast. In Germany, the film was presented for the first time on March 14, 2015 as part of the Fantasy Filmfest Nights and on April 4, 2015 at the Splatterday Night Fever in Saarbrücken , organized by Yazid Benfeghoul . Further festival screenings followed, including at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival and the Sydney Film Festival .

The DVD and Blu-ray were released on May 15, 2015 on the Pierrot le Fou label. Despite the sometimes very explicit portrayal of violence, the film was approved by the voluntary self-regulation of the film industry after an appointment procedure without cuts with a no-youth rating.

reception

The film received mostly critical acclaim. The German film magazine Deadline praised the film as a "hoped-for refreshment and reopening of the demonic screen". Philipp Bühler from the Berliner Zeitung praises the film as a “formidable horror triptych”. The horror film magazine Virus postulates that it is a "not only extraordinary, but also uncomfortable horror milestone". The science-fiction magazine Geek contrast, described the genre film to be "conditionally succeeded" and raised especially the episode mandrake out, while the other two episodes were described as "little thrilling."

Web links

Commons : Premiere of German Angst  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. a b c Leonhard Elias Lemke: The three faces of fear . In: Deadline . No. 51 , March 2015, p. 122-128 .
  2. a b c Marcus Menold: Jörg Buttgereit: Beyond German Angst . In: Virus . No. 64 (April / May), 2015, pp. 22nd f .
  3. Sascha Westphal : The horror behind the door . In: EPD film . May 2015, p. 36 .
  4. Beatrice Behn: Festival Review Rotterdam 2015. Kino-zeit.de, accessed on September 19, 2015 .
  5. Mike Lowrey: German Angst - FSK grants approval in the second attempt. Schnittberichte.com , March 5, 2015, accessed September 5, 2015 .
  6. ^ Leonhard Elias Lemke: German fear . In: Deadline . No. 51 , March 2015, p. 127 .
  7. Philipp Bühler: Be afraid. Berliner Zeitung , May 8, 2015, accessed on September 5, 2015 .
  8. German Angst - The German Trinity of Horror . In: VIRUS . No. 65 (June / July), 2014, pp. 868 f .
  9. ^ Christian Lukas: DVD & Blu-Ray . In: Geek! No. 19 (July / August), 2015, pp. 45 .