Burning through the forest

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Movie
Original title Burning through the forest
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2014
length 89 minutes
Rod
Director Michael Rowitz
script Markus B. Altmeyer
production Quirin Mountain
music Egon Riedel
camera Roman Novocien
cut Achim Seidel
occupation

Burnout through the forest is a German TV film from 2014.

action

Six burnout patients and their therapist Hannah set off for four days of outdoor therapy in Märkische Schweiz in Brandenburg : on the one hand there is the single teacher Silvia, who tries to compensate for her everyday stress with a shopping addiction and is already on the verge of a sudden hearing loss .

On the other hand, there is the restless management consultant Johann, who confuses efficiency and profit maximization with the meaning of life. Johann is a workaholic who, according to his own statement, has no weaknesses and is only there because he was forced to do so by his boss and his assistant. And now he has to share a room with the frustrated teacher Silvia. The two are spider enemies and still cannot deny a certain attraction.

The long-term unemployed Alfred, on the other hand, seeks the blame for the exhaustion society in the capitalist system and in people like Johann, whom he tries to open his eyes as the film progresses. And with a violent slap in the face.

The always undecided and underpaid long-term intern Rosa, who shuffles from one fixed-term contract to the next, is in her late twenties and completely burned out. Instead of realizing herself in art, as she always wanted, she works for an advertising agency to make unhealthy full-fat chocolate palatable to fat children.

And last but not least, the opposing pensioner couple Herbert and Gudrun also go on this therapeutic outdoor trip: While the slightly depressed Gudrun is basically just waiting for the approaching death, Herbert finally wants to enjoy his retirement and have another big bang to let. To the great lack of understanding of Gudrun, he has already secretly bought a mobile home for this purpose in order to travel the world with it.

For the overly optimistic therapist Hannah, her six stressed patients prove to be real hardship cases in the further course. She soon realizes that she is reaching her limits with her standard methods from stress research: hiking together through the quiet nature, building bridges to sharpen teamwork and reflecting on the essentials through waking therapy do not seem to be of any benefit this time.

Ultimately, it is rather the patients themselves who more or less treat each other on this journey by listening to each other, getting closer and taking their problems seriously. And when Johann, who has already laid off numerous employees with great verve as part of his consulting job, finally becomes the victim of a rationalization measure himself and is told by telephone that he no longer needs his services, the passionate advocate of the performance society also sees it that things are not as simple as he always does.

While Herbert and Gudrun decide in the end to rather go the last stage of their life separately, the shopping addict Silvia finds a new partner and househusband in the newly fired number optimizer Johann, who might bring some order back into her life - and in her overdrawn bank account - will bring. Rosa, on the other hand, takes the advice of the long-term unemployed Alfred seriously and takes a sabbatical year first - instead of allowing herself to be further exploited by unscrupulous employers. And Alfred finally remembers his student days, when he hired himself as a taxi driver. Instead of continuing to distribute flyers disguised as a hot dog in the pedestrian zone, as the job center asked him to do, he sits down in the taxi again and meets a lot of interesting people there.

Even if the patients are not completely at peace in the end, they have become a little wiser. At the end of this rather exhausting journey, the therapist Hannah is in need of therapy herself. Because even if she gave her patients the good advice not to have high expectations of themselves and life so that one would not be disappointed so quickly, her own expectations were 6 burnouts in 4 days cure, as Johann notes, maybe a little too ambitious. So it's no wonder that this extremely high expectation ends up being overwhelmed.

Reviews

TV Spielfilm praised the "well-humored ensemble" in a "mild to thoughtful, sometimes very funny ensemble piece on the common disease" that lives "from the actors and good figure drawings".

The Frankfurter Neue Presse, on the other hand, was of the opinion that the film wanted "to be a lot at once and it doesn't always manage the balancing act between the genres convincingly. In addition, the characters sometimes seem poorly thought out".

The Frankfurter Rundschau believes that the film " convinces not least thanks to the actors " in addition to its approaching and sensitive image design ( Roman Nowocien ). "Clichés are accepted if they contain a true core, but hide behind the seemingly stereotypical roles people who continually struggle with different degrees of desperation for self-determination, orientation, dignity. " The reviewer Harald Keller further writes that the story is anchored "in social events" and flips through professional biographies "with which many viewers can identify: excessive demands, dismissal talks, the struggle for continued employment, regular presentations at the employment agency, the prejudices with which they are The long-term unemployed see themselves confronted. Tragedy and comedy go hand in hand here, dialog jokes, a romance, slapstick moments give the plot an entertaining character, but do not dilute the issue. This is a cheerful inventory; it would be presumptuous, the comedy a lack Accused of investigating the cause. Other genres are responsible for that. "

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ TV feature film , accessed on September 14, 2014
  2. ↑ Frankfurter Neue Presse ( Memento of the original from September 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed September 14, 2014 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.fnp.de
  3. ^ Frankfurter Rundschau , accessed on March 7, 2015

Web links