I pledge

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Movie
Original title I pledge
Country of production Austria
original language German
Publishing year 1994
length 113 minutes
Rod
Director Wolfgang Murnberger
script Wolfgang Murnberger
production Milan Dor
Danny Krausz ( Dor Film )
music Mischa Krausz
Robert Stiegler
camera Fabian Eder
cut Marie Homolkova
occupation

I promise is an Austrian fictional film from 1994. The drama was directed by Wolfgang Murnberger , who also wrote the autobiographical screenplay. Dor Film produced the film. Christoph Dostal played the main role.

action

It tells of the somewhat unspectacular life and the more extravagant thoughts of a young man named Berger from Eastern Austria during the time of his compulsory military service as a military man in the Federal Army in 1980 . Scenes from everyday life as a soldier are shown, the training outdoors with monotonous drill and in adverse weather, the boring theory lessons. All of this is intended to make the military men with Matura into reserve officers, so that they are later able to lead soldiers in a possible emergency.

The personal conversations and the jokes of the comrades on duty and outside, especially the time of going out at the weekend, provide a balance to the military routine. Then, as a joke, prostitutes are approached from the car or visited places to relax with alcohol and to indulge in the female sex in thoughts and eyes.

Wehrmann Berger also has an artistic streak: He paints the door of the barracks toilet with his fantastic pictures, plays in a band, often dreams into the daytime (sometimes appearing as a knight in full armor with or without a horse or one such sees). Reference is made to the Middle Ages again and again, not only through the figure of the knight, but also through the book shown in the film with pictures by Hieronymus Bosch or with hurdy-gurdy music.

After completing his military service, Berger wants to become a painter. The father, who runs a cinema in the small town with the active support of the whole family, is not at all happy with this career aspiration of the son, because he considers attending the art academy only a hidden form of unwillingness to work and would prefer his son to come along after completing his high school diploma, immediately starts working, for example with an insurance company, as a comrade Berger intends to do.

Even with women, not everything is going as Berger would like it to be. Nothing happens in bed with those who interest him, like his girlfriend Veronika, and Berger doesn't want anything from those who are (supposedly) ready, because he only wants surrender in connection with “pure love”. But slowly, physical desire and above all the futile search for completely pure love seems to triumph over romance when one evening two of his comrades visit a brothel while driving through Vienna together.

background

The film title refers to the swearing in of the soldiers, which begins with the words "I swear". In the swearing-in scene, Berger secretly expresses his dissent by crossing the index and middle fingers of one hand during the oath.

The film was shot from October 1993 to February 1994 in Vienna , Burgenland and Lower Austria .

I pledge is one of 50 films that were released on DVD in the first part of the edition “ The Austrian Film ”.

reception

The majority of the critics received the film well. Claus Philipp said in the Standard that I vow to be “a great, a simple, a radically headstrong film” . Henning Brüns also praised the film in the Berliner Zeitung : “Aside from the often usual, absurd clichés that either satirize the citizen in uniform as a joke or dissolve in the tranquil comradeship pathos, Murnberger was primarily interested in showing the limits of individual freedom . He succeeded convincingly. "

Awards

At the Viennale 1994 the film received the Vienna Film Prize . He was the Austrian candidate for a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1995 Academy Awards , but was neither nominated nor awarded.

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ Film info I pledge , derstandard.at
  2. ↑ I vow ( Memento of 29 September 2007 at the Internet Archive ) About the film on FabianEder.com