Hunting scenes from Lower Bavaria (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Hunting scenes from Lower Bavaria |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1969 |
| length | 88 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Peter Fleischmann |
| script | Peter Fleischmann |
| production | Rob Houwer |
| camera | Alain Derobe |
| cut |
Barbara Mondry Jane Seitz |
| occupation | |
| |
Hunting scenes from Niederbayern is a 1968 German movie directed by Peter Fleischmann with Martin Sperr in the leading role.
action
After a long absence, the 20-year-old mechanic Abram comes back to his mother in his small home village in Lower Bavaria . As post-war refugees, both are not natives, which is why Abram's mother is all the more anxious to maintain her good reputation. She tells the other villagers that her son worked in the big city while he was away. Soon, however, the village was whispering that Abram was in prison in Landshut . Abram kept a low profile about the reason for his stay in prison, but it quickly emerged that he was in prison because of a contact with another man and Section 175, which was still in force at the time . As a homosexual ex-convict, Abram has now finally been branded an outsider and is being attacked. His mother sets herself apart from him in order not to be associated with him by the other villagers.
The village community, in which many work in agriculture, carry out slaughtering and harvesting together and usually go to the Catholic Church on Sundays, offers the majority society a close community life - but people who cannot or do not want to adapt are mercilessly marginalized. In addition to Abram, this also applies to Hannelore, who is decried as a “village whore”, who is the only person who shows Abram understanding and care. However, Hannelore hopes that Abram will continue an apparently earlier love affair with her, which, however, does not seem willing. The widow Maria, with whom Abram lives on the farm, is also the subject of village shops because of her disabled son Ernstl and her illegitimate relationship with her servant Volker. Long-haired young people and guest workers are also temporarily targeted. Volker presses Hannelore in a cornfield, who finally agrees to have sex with him for money.
Meanwhile, the villagers' prejudices against Abram turn into sheer hatred, which soon turns into a kind of 'human hunt'. The butcheress, who happened to drive by, watched Abram hugging Ernstl on the motorway bridge, which led to speculation that Abram had raped the disabled youth. Maria refers Abram to her court and Abram decides to leave the village forever. However, the villagers prevent him from getting on the bus because the butcher has called the police and wants to report him. Because in the meantime the pregnant Hannelore has asserted in front of the villagers that Abram is also the father of her son, which has increased the anger in the village against Abram. When Hannelore tries to prevent him from leaving the village, an argument breaks out in which the young wife is killed by Abram in an affect. The village rabble gets into a rage and the villagers search the forest for Abram in a communal pack. Abram is caught and arrested, after which the village community celebrates happily at a village festival.
Production backgrounds
The film is based on the play Hunting Scenes from Lower Bavaria by the main actor Sperr. In addition to Sperr, according to Fleischmann, Rainer Werner Fassbinder was also interested in the main role. Fleischmann mixed professional actors with amateur actors in the cast, some directly from the filming locations, in order to ensure an authentic atmosphere. The 73-year-old Johann Brunner, who later described the film as the best time of his life, convinced Fleischmann to step in front of the camera as an old man. For the then still unknown young actresses Angela Winkler and Hanna Schygulla , this was both the first full-length feature film.
The shooting took place from August 5th to October 6th, 1968, the main setting was the village of Unholzing , also in the neighboring village Ergoldsbach . Many of the town's residents originally assumed that a hunting film would be made. Despite the provocative subject matter at the time, the villagers took part in the film as supporting actors and extras. The relationship between the villagers and the directing team was praiseworthy, as director Fleischmann confirmed again in an interview in 2019. Some of the villagers said at the premiere in an interview that they had found the members of the film crew - although some of them had long hair - sympathetic. When asked how a villager who had let himself be “guilty” would be treated in Unholzing, one interviewee replied that he would definitely be cut.
Hunting scenes from Lower Bavaria had its world premiere in May 1969 during the Cannes International Film Festival . The German premiere took place on May 29, 1969 in Landshut . The reaction to the film in the region was sometimes hostile and one person even wrote to the newspaper: "I would love to blow up the whole cinema with this mess!" Other visitors to the cinema premiere worried about the reputation of the Lower Bavaria region. On the other hand, there were also positive voices at the premiere in Landshut, praising the socially critical aspects and a realistic staging. The film was first shown on German television on March 11, 1977 on ARD .
Awards
The amateur actor Michael Strixner (1938–2013), who was actually a film projectionist, received the German Film Prize for Best Actor for his portrayal of Schorsch . Martin Sperr, Angela Winkler, Else Quecke, Maria Stadler and Hanna Schygulla also received nominations for the German Film Prize. Fleischmann received the German Film Band in Silver , an award for the second best German film of the year.
Hunting scenes from Lower Bavaria was sent by the FRG as an official German proposal in the race for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1970 Oscar Awards , but received no nomination.
criticism
The Wiesbaden film evaluation agency gave the work the rating of “valuable”.
The Protestant film observer drew the following conclusion: “Peter Fleischmann's feature film debut, which shows the dangers of a mass psychosis in a consistent way . [...] Unpretentious and realistic, one of the essential phenomena of the original situation of fascism is shown: the interchangeability of positions, persecutors become persecuted and vice versa. "
Reclam's film guide said: “Fleischmann has rediscovered the setting of the German Heimatfilm. But the staff and decorations are completely changed. In addition to the professional actors, lay people stand in front of the camera, the milieu is drawn with strong lines. The director did not completely escape the danger of portraying his village as a panopticon and the villagers as abnormal monsters. But the narrow-minded narrow-mindedness, the mechanics of conformism, which expels and chases the "different" becomes very clear. The brutality of gross jokes, unteachability, prejudices become clear. "
The French film magazine Cahiers du Cinema found words of praise: “Hunting scenes from Lower Bavaria is perhaps the first really German film since the end of the war, not because it was a film about Germany or about typical German behavior: racism, fascism, irrational marginalization are everywhere; but because he is deeply rooted in his country, his culture, his everyday life. "
The lexicon of the international film wrote about hunting scenes in Lower Bavaria : “A polemical demythization of lying home film clichés, combined with a sarcastic description of dull provincial mentality that appears as the nucleus of political repression. Local color and folkloric ambience serve less for the documentary milieu study, but are stylized into a symbolic negative idyll that does not shrink from glaring clichés and denunciations - which somewhat reduces the credibility of the parable. "
“Under the guise of village decency, the film shows cruelty, suppressed sexuality and intolerance towards outsiders of all kinds [...] The film corresponds to the conventional problem film, but it is brought up to the state of today's social enlightenment. But what ultimately brings the film down is its conventional design, which suffocates the whole issue in boredom. "
“A masterpiece ; the at the same time merciless and brilliantly amusing study of a village community who ostracizes a farm boy for his suspected pederastic inclinations and drives him to murder before it brings him down in an organized manhunt. The scenes from country life [...] are so rich in detail, as if Breughel and Flaubert had worked together. "
Web links
- Hunting Scenes from Lower Bavaria in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Hunting scenes from Lower Bavaria at filmportal.de
Individual evidence
- ^ Hans Kratzer: Film history: uproar over hunting scenes from Lower Bavaria. Retrieved November 18, 2019 .
- ^ Hans Kratzer: Film history: uproar over hunting scenes from Lower Bavaria. Retrieved November 18, 2019 .
- ^ Hunting scenes from Lower Bavaria - cinema premiere. Retrieved November 18, 2019 (German).
- ^ Hans Kratzer: Film history: uproar over hunting scenes from Lower Bavaria. Retrieved November 18, 2019 .
- ^ Hunting scenes from Lower Bavaria - cinema premiere. Retrieved November 18, 2019 (German).
- ^ Filmportal.de and Spiegel.de .
- ^ Obituary for Strixner
- ↑ Hunting scenes from Lower Bavaria - IMDb. Retrieved November 17, 2019 .
- ↑ Evangelischer Presseverband München, Critique No. 232/1969
- ^ Reclam's film guide. By Dieter Krusche, collaboration with Jürgen Labenski. Stuttgart 1973, p. 353.
- ↑ By Bernd Nitzschke: Hunting scenes from Lower Bavaria - A memory of Martin Sperr's play and Peter Fleischmann's film from current events: literaturkritik.de. Retrieved November 18, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Klaus Brüne (Red.): Lexikon des Internationale Films Volume 4, S. 1853. Reinbek near Hamburg 1987.
- ↑ Hans Scheugl: Sexuality and Neurosis in Film. The cinema myths from Griffith to Warhol. - Approved, unabridged paperback edition. - Heyne, Munich 1978 (Heyne-Buch; 7074), ISBN 3-453-00899-5 , p. 207
- ↑ here quoted from: Robert Fischer; Joe Hembus: The New German Film, 1960–1980. 2nd edition Goldmann, Munich 1982 (Citadel-Filmbücher) (Goldmann Magnum; 10211), ISBN 3-442-10211-1 , p. 52