KOMA (film)

Movie
Original title	COMA
Country of production	Austria
original language	German
Publishing year	2009
length	82 minutes
Rod
Director	Ludwig Wüst
script	Ludwig Wüst
production	film-pla.net (A)
camera	Klemens Kosher
cut	Samuel Käppeli
occupation
Nenad Šmigoc: Hans Roswitha Soukup: his wife Claudia Martini : his lover Gertrud Stefan Mansberger: son Heinrich Herki: grandfather Daniela Gaets : neighbor Werner Landsgesell: Neighbor Manfred Stella: family friend Georg Peter Raab: Richy

KOMA is a feature film by the Austrian film and theater director Ludwig Wüst. The film is his feature film debut. The film celebrated its world premiere at the 31st Moscow Film Festival in 2009 . The cinema release in Austria was on September 17, 2010. KOMA is the first Austrian film to be launched worldwide as video-on-demand on the cinema platform mubi.com at the same time as it was released in cinemas .

action

The main character of the film, Hans, lives as a taxi driver with his family on the outskirts of Vienna.

For his 50th birthday there is a party for which he does not appear. Instead you see him roaming restlessly through a forest. Meanwhile, his son watches snuff videos on the Internet with his friend Richy . Richy burns Hans' son a DVD of a certain video in which a man beats a woman until she lies motionless. Hans' son leaves the DVD in the apartment. The mother believes that it is his birthday present for the father and wraps it in wrapping paper.

In the evening the father returns and finds the traces of the festival for him. He opens the gift with the DVD and watches the video. He is confronted with his past as the beating scene shows him himself.

He leaves the family and looks for the woman from the video, whom he finds in a nursing home in Germany. She is in a vegetative state . He takes them in and takes care of them. The end of the film shows the two of them having a love scene in bed.

Reviews

“With Koma, Wüst is now presenting his first full-length work with a larger ensemble, and it is one of the discoveries at this Viennale. ... The combination of provocation and precision is remarkable: Wüst casually touches on taboo subjects while he continues his stylistic daring, such as his fascination for long shots and the relaxed use of dialect. "

- Christoph Huber, Die Presse

“Everyday life and violent pornography are close together here. In view of the very urgent, uncompromising staging of Wüst, one thinks of the traumatic realism of the Dardennne brothers, including the media shocker Michael Hanekes. "

- Stefan Grissemann, profile

"Filmed with a digital hand-held camera, every shot looks like a miniature of the great secret."

- Michael Pekler, Isabella Reicher, Der Standard

“How all the incidental activities increase to unbearable, that reminds of Haneke, how Wüst documents everyday life logically of Seidl. And then the coma becomes something very special. The crescendo of loneliness and violence is given a coda that surprises, touches and at the same time, depending on the interpretation, holds another dimension of horror in store. Coma is one of those films that rush after watching, that demands patience, but at the same time works with the impatience of the audience. The film makes it very clear that Ludwig Wüst can and wants to be more than an epigone. "

- Martin Sennhauser, DRS2

“An obsessive film about obsessive people ... Coma, for example, is not about a pathology of the bourgeois nuclear family, it is just a starting point. ... Coma is not an experimental set-up in which the viewer is precisely clamped and processed, but rather a long, open-ended immersion in the unhappy dynamics of his own images. "

- Lukas Foerster, Cargo

“Last Exit: Petty bourgeois hell! Director Ludwig Wüst confronts us with comatose, rigid images full of urgency, which make the disorientation of his protagonist as well as the devastating speechlessness within the family palpable. A film - and a man in limbo. The mind-expanding impact takes place much later ... "

- Christina Krisch, Kronen Zeitung

Awards and festivals

• Moscow International Film Festival (Competition)
• Reykjavík International Film Festival (Competition)
• Festival du Nouveau Cinéma Montréal (competition)
• Film Festival Max Ophüls Prize (Spectrum)
• Hof International Film Festival (competition)
• Viennale
• Diagonal (competition)
• Split International Film Festival (Competition)
• Nordkapp Film Festival (competition)
• Tamil Nadu International Film Festival: Best Film

Web links

• Website of the film
• Making of the film
• Interview with the director (video)
• KOMA in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Official homepage of the Austrian rental company

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Christoph Huber:Coma in the cinema: your own father in a violent video . Die Presse, September 19, 2009 (accessed on January 7, 2010)
2. ^ Christoph Huber: Viennale: Austrian filmmakers recommend . Die Presse, October 16, 2009 (accessed on January 6, 2010)
3. ↑ Stefan Grissemann: Everyday Abyss. Profile, June 22, 2009
4. ↑ Michael Pekler, Isabella Reicher: Solitaires on remote routes . Der Standard, September 17, 2010 (accessed on January 6, 2010)
5. ↑ Martin Sennhauser: Diagonal 10: KOMA . DRS2, March 18, 2010 (accessed on January 6, 2010)
6. ↑ Lukas Foerster: CARGO on the diagonal . Cargo, March 24, 2010 (accessed January 6, 2010)
7. ↑ Christina Krisch: Day of repentance on the 50th birthday: "Coma" . Kronen Zeitung, September 15, 2010 (accessed on January 6, 2010)