Stop on the open road

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Movie
Original title Stop on the open road
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2011
length 109 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Andreas Dresen
script Andreas Dresen
Cooky Ziesche
production Peter Rommel
music Jens Quandt
camera Michael Hammon
cut Jörg Hauschild
occupation

Stop on the open road is a feature film by the German director Andreas Dresen from 2011 . The drama about a Berlin family man (played by Milan Peschel ), who is slowly dying of a brain tumor , premiered on May 15, 2011 in the Un Certain Regard section of the 64th Cannes Film Festival . That year it was the only German feature film that received an invitation to the official sections of the festival. The cinema release in Germany took place on November 17, 2011. Dresen's directorial work has received several awards, including the German Film Critics' Prize and the German Film Prize .

The film was produced by Peter Rommel ( Rommel Film ) in coproduction with Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (rbb) and in cooperation with the Franco-German TV broadcaster ARTE and Iskremas Filmproduktion.

action

The 44-year-old Frank Lange is confronted with his cancer diagnosis: the discovered brain tumor is malignant and inoperable, as his doctor in the hospital tells him. The family man, who lives with his wife Simone and their two children Lilly and Mika in a new row house on the outskirts of Berlin and does a regular job, are only given a few more months. Supported by his family, he uses his smartphone to document the progression of his illness on a daily basis. Later he will also be looked after at home. The radiation and chemotherapy leach Frank. In delusions he sees his brain tumor appear as an actor and boastful interlocutor with Harald Schmidt .

The two teenage children have to cope with the symptoms of their father's illness and are overwhelmed with the situation. Wife Simone also struggles for composure and strength. The tumor robs Frank of his memory, then his ability to orient himself and control over important body functions. Because of the pain, he is constantly dependent on morphine and is therefore also subject to a personality change. Eventually Frank loses his language skills and becomes a nursing case. He dies at home with his family. The film ends on her father's deathbed with the words of her daughter Lilly, a high diver : "I have to go to training."

Film music

Among other things, the song Summer Day by Gisbert zu Knyphausen can be heard in the credits of the film .

The song "Love and Mercy" by Brian Wilson is sung in a film scene as a simple but impressive cover by the main character of the film to the guitar.

History of origin

Director Andreas Dresen (2009)

The film was shot in Germany in 2010 , after a year marked by dissolution, separation and hardship for the director and his circle of friends. Andreas Dresen researched the topic with Cooky Ziesche for several months and interviewed dying attendants , doctors and surviving dependents. A database was created from the recorded conversations, which was discussed with the actors and later with the entire production team, which consisted of seven people. From this the characters and a sequence of scenes developed. There was no film script when shooting, so the actors had to improvise all the dialogues. Dresen emphasized in the press kit for the film when it appeared in Cannes that the story of Halt on the open road was not shaped by personal experiences - Dresen's father had died ten years earlier of a brain tumor.

Milan Peschel and Steffi Kühnert were hired for the leading roles of the couple , the latter had already worked with Dresen on the films Halbe Staircase (2002) and Cloud 9 (2008). The role of the daughter was cast with a real young Berlin athlete who had similar experiences in her family. Dresen selected the Lilly actress from four girls. The younger son Mika was discovered through a casting agency. The former Dresen actors Ursula Werner , Otto Mellies , Christine Schorn and Inka Friedrich also play in supporting roles . Real staff were hired as doctors and nurses, who brought their experience to the film.

Reviews

At the premiere of the film at the Cannes Film Festival, Halt on the Open Track was largely praised by German-language criticism. Andreas Borcholte ( Spiegel Online ) saw Dresen's directorial work as a candidate for the official competition for the Golden Palm and Milan Peschel as the favorite for the actor's award instead of a contribution from the secondary section. The film is a “touching drama of death” and it is astonishing and impressive at the same time how the director brings “everyday, but no less existential dramas” to his audience. Borcholte praised the “quiet, little scenes” of stopping on the open road , which managed without “exploitative shock and scandal moments”. Hanns-Georg Rodek ( Berliner Morgenpost ) was also surprised in a short review that Dresen's best film so far landed "in the second most important series" and that Gus Van Sant's kitschy cancer film Restless was allowed to open the section. According to Thomas Klingenmaier ( Stuttgarter Zeitung ), Halt on the open track is “the bravest German film of the year and probably the best”.

According to Tobias Kniebe ( Süddeutsche Zeitung ) , Dresen is not afraid to “show everything” - dripping saliva, last sex, the last incontinence diaper. At the same time he drives the “tired old stylistic device of realism” with dialogues and cast to “impressive climaxes”. Except for the dream scene, which equates to a “liberation”, Dresen avoids “everything metaphysical, including all words about what this life, which is coming to an end, could now have meant”. According to Susanne Ostwald ( Neue Zürcher Zeitung ), “perhaps the most important among the younger German filmmakers” remains true to style. Dresen's exact representation of reality contains absurd humor that is otherwise only known from British cinema. The convincing representations of the actors are almost unbearable. The Frankfurter Rundschau attested the director great sensitivity and sincerity in dealing with the constant decline of the male main character and the excessive demands on the family. Rüdiger Suchsland ( Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ) criticized Dresden's staging. Dresen does not succeed in lifting the characters from their banality, "he [Dresen] fails on the tightrope between kitsch and cold". The naturalism of Dresen remains pure assertion, while Suchsland rated the performance as good.

Alexandra Wach ( film-dienst ) praises the “disarming objectivity” with which Dresen depicts the stages of the disease and the “great actors”, but criticizes the “comedic break” caused by the “figure of the human tumor” appearing in daydreams.

The voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (FSK) released the film "despite its haunting and depressing mood and the sad topic" for children from 6 years, because it "does not represent a lasting emotional burden. On the one hand, this stems from the calm narrative style that does not rely on dramatic effects, on the other hand, it also comes from the two child family members: They offer themselves to young viewers as positive figures of identification that show that one can also learn to deal with the death of a loved one. "

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Release certificate for stopping on the open road . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , August 2011 (PDF; test number: 128 930 K).
  2. Festival de Cannes 2011. (PDF; 289 kB) festival-cannes.com, accessed on May 19, 2011 (French, program).
  3. Release dates. IMDb, May 22, 2011, accessed May 22, 2011 .
  4. a b c Stopped on track. Stop on the open road. (PDF; 2.06 MB) festival-cannes.com, pp. 12–16 , accessed on May 19, 2011 (English, Cannes press kit).
  5. Interview with Andreas Dresen , Welt Online , May 23, 2011 (accessed December 20, 2011)
  6. Andreas Borcholte: Been to the cinema and cried. Spiegel Online , May 15, 2011, accessed May 19, 2011 .
  7. Hanns-Georg Rodek: Mystical version of Genesis with Brad Pitt. Berliner Morgenpost , May 17, 2011, accessed on May 19, 2011 .
  8. Stop on the open road - When the days become countable ( Memento of January 2, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) - Article from the Stuttgarter Zeitung of November 17, 2011.
  9. Tobias Kniebe: Fallen out of the nest. Süddeutsche Zeitung , May 16, 2011, accessed on May 19, 2011 .
  10. Susanne Ostwald: The life looked. Neue Zürcher Zeitung , May 18, 2011, accessed on May 19, 2011 .
  11. Anke Westphal: Sirens with sharp teeth. Frankfurter Rundschau , May 15, 2011, accessed on September 29, 2011 .
  12. Rüdiger Suchsland: In contrast, a writing crisis is the purest spa stay . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . No. 116 , May 19, 2011, p. 33 .
  13. Alexandra Wach: Stop on the open road. film service, August 2011.
  14. Release reasons archive. Reason for release for stopping on the open road . FSK , accessed October 29, 2012 .
  15. ^ Les Prix Un Certain Regard 2011. festival-cannes.com, May 21, 2011, accessed May 21, 2011 .
  16. Stop on the open road. Predicate particularly valuable. FBW , accessed September 29, 2011 .
  17. "Golden Beaver" for filmmaker Andreas Dresen  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , suedkurier.de from November 6, 2011@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.suedkurier.de