Nothing happens (movie)

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Movie
Original title Nothing happens
Missed poster CC.jpg
Country of production Switzerland
original language German
Publishing year 2015
length 92 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Micha Lewinsky
script Micha Lewinsky
production HC Vogel
music Marcel Blatti
camera Pierre Mennel
cut Gion-Reto Killias
occupation

Film still, left: Devid Striesow, right Annina Walt

Nothing Happened A feature film by director Micha Lewinsky from 2015. Thomas Engel is going on a ski holiday in the Swiss Alps with his wife, daughter and the daughter of his boss . Although he tries to spread a good mood, family problems and difficulties with the village youth quickly arise. Nothing happened had its premiere on February 11, 2016.

action

At the beginning of the film you see father Thomas with a psychotherapist , where after an unspecified "loss of control" he certifies that his family is much better. He blames the problem on the alcohol consumption at the time and shows full understanding for the therapist. In order to show his family that he is not “someone to worry about” and that he is a “normal, nice man”, he plans a skiing holiday with his daughter Jenny and his wife Martina, a writer. Even the journey brings up some conflicts; especially that Thomas is taking Sarah, his boss's daughter, on vacation.

When the four move into the hut, there is neither electricity nor heating. Thomas drives to Ruedi, the owner of the hut. He sends his son Severin to be repaired. Jenny tells that she has known Severin since they were children and that he is like a brother to her. Before leaving, he invites the girls to a party in the village that evening. Martina is against it, but Jenny and Sarah manage to persuade Thomas. He wants to be careful that nothing happens. Martina starts writing her next book. Thomas takes the girls to the village and waits in a café. There he meets Ruedi and refuses a schnapps. When asked for an explanation, he says that he deliberately rammed his car into a colleague's car while under the influence of alcohol. He hadn't told his wife about the incident and the subsequent therapy.

At the agreed time, only Jenny comes to the car and is angry with Sarah without explaining why. Thomas looks for Sarah and finds her crying in a photo booth . She says that she slept with Severin in his car - which her parents are not allowed to find out. She had never slept with a man before and told him to stop. Thomas wants to go to the police, which Sarah refuses, as does a call to her parents. He doesn't tell his wife about the incident either, but tries to get the family back in the mood with breakfast.

Sarah and Thomas go to a pharmacy to buy the morning-after pill . Sarah explains that her parents are not allowed to find out because her mother has custody and could withdraw the father's visitation rights. In order to give his daughter Jenny a positive opinion, he buys her an expensive snowboard. Which annoys Martina, because this gift was linked to better grades. Jenny and Sarah have fun snowboarding together.

Thomas can't fall asleep and sees Sarah lying outside in the snow, wearing only a nightgown. He wraps her in a blanket and warms up the hypothermic Sarah. A meeting with Severin's father Ruedi, planned as a clarifying discussion, escalated the next day. He sees in the rape allegation above all the risk of ruining Severin's life, stops him to shut up and throws him out.

When Thomas wants to talk to Sarah's father about the problem by phone, the latter explains beforehand that he has read Thomas' draft for his own literature supplement and that he thinks it is good. The current problems are then no longer discussed. Thomas' wife is also dissatisfied that Thomas does not take his responsibility for Sarah, does not stick to agreements and gives his wife a skiing holiday together instead of the time she wished to write alone.

Sarah decides to go to the police. Thomas drives her and tries to make her understand the difficulties during interrogation along the way. You play through the interrogation, Sarah tells the story from her point of view. Where some gaps in Sarah's memory become clear. Thomas advises her that her testimony will cause problems for some people. They agree that Sarah will first write down the events for herself.

The next day on the slopes, Thomas can't resist the alcohol and drinks a beer and a schnapps. At a small concert in the evening, his wife asks him what would be so bad about a breakup. Sarah and Jenny also argue because Jenny is still jealous. Thomas seeks a clarifying conversation with Severin, who says that Sarah also wanted sex. Thomas makes him apologize to her, but she runs away. In the gondola of the ski lift, she wants to call her father, which she wants to keep Thomas from. After a brief scuffle, Sarah runs away again and falls a few meters from the gondola platform.

Shortly after each other, Sarah's parents come to the hospital, where Sarah is in an artificial coma . Sarah's father drives to the ski hut and has dinner with Thomas' family. He casually talks about Thomas' deliberate collision with his colleague, surprising his wife and daughter.

Sarah woke up the next morning. Her parents want Thomas to come to the hospital. There he realizes that Sarah can't remember anything since they arrived at the hut. He tells her that the fall happened on a red ski slope . Severin would like to visit her and apologize. Thomas intercepts him and tells him that Sarah has forgotten everything.

On the last evening Jenny goes to a party in the village again. When he thinks his wife is sleeping, he goes into Sarah's room and fetches her diary. Martina catches him, and Thomas can't find an excuse, so she suspects that Thomas had a relationship with Sarah. He excuses himself with the fact that Sarah fell in love with him, which he did not respond. Thomas pretends to be hurt by his wife's allegations, drinks a glass of red wine and leaves the house, declaring that he wants to take the diary to the clinic. He reads the book and goes into town to pick up his daughter. She left the pub with Severin a while ago. Thomas takes two small bottles of schnapps with him, drinks them and drives to Severin's house.

There he only meets Severin, who declares that he is not interested in Jenny because she does not look good enough. Thomas hits Severin with a trophy and injures his head. The father comes up and throws Thomas out. Meanwhile, Severin collapses, the father wants to drive him to the hospital and then to the police to report Thomas. Thomas follows them on a winding mountain road at high speed, drives next to their car and calls out that this could be clarified. In the end, Thomas rams the car from behind, it breaks through the guardrail, falls down a slope and overturns. Thomas stops briefly at the accident vehicle, but continues, although it remains unclear how Severin and Ruedi are. Back in the hut, Thomas finds Jenny in her bed.

Finally the family is on their way home. In a parking lot, Thomas finds the diary in the side pocket of the car and, crying, throws it into a wastebasket. In the last shot, the family drives on in silence.

Production and background

According to director Micha Lewinsky, the focus of the film is on the question “What happens when you know about a crime that you haven't committed? When does one go from being a witness to being an accomplice? ”. Up to the question "At what point do we all make ourselves guilty every day by not defending ourselves against injustices that we know about?" Lewinsky really wanted Striesow as the leading actor for the film, and he immediately agreed. Lewinsky then wrote the script in a few weeks. The financing of the project had to be clarified between late summer and Striesow's only free week in the spring of next year. HC Vogel from Plan B Film found itself as a partner for this. Swiss television was also involved.

The shooting took place in Prättigau , a valley between Landquart and Davos . The film was shot in the format 1: 2.39 with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound in German and Swiss German . He has received support from the Swiss Federal Office for Culture, the Zurich Film Foundation , Succès Cinéma, the Suissimage Culture Fund, the Canton of Graubünden Culture Promotion, Swisslos and Migros Culture Percentage . The film has been available on DVD since June 24, 2016.

Reviews

epd Film thinks that “Striesow has such a friendly charisma that the viewer trembles along with this spineless sausage” and also thinks “the other actors are excellent”. Striesow also received good criticism from the FAZ : It is to his credit that he “almost makes the difference between fiction and reality disappear”. The Frankfurter Rundschau takes a somewhat critical view of the end of the film: "And so this film, which unfortunately is a bit overdriven towards the finale, is also a study of the horror that can ultimately be inherent in every family relationship."

Awards

Festival participation

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for nothing happened . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF; test number: 156807 / K). Template: FSK / maintenance / type not set and Par. 1 longer than 4 characters
  2. ↑ Nothing happens: press booklet (excerpts). www.movienetfilm.de, accessed on December 11, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Martina Knoben: Critique of Nothing Happened. www.epd-film.de, January 21, 2016, accessed December 11, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Bert Rebhandl: His conscience is constantly sweating. www.faz.net, February 13, 2016, accessed December 11, 2017 .
  5. ↑ Frank Junghänel: In the wake of lies. www.fr.de, February 10, 2016, accessed on December 11, 2017 .
  6. ^ "Frame" jury: The 100 best Swiss films of the new millennium . In: NZZ . December 15, 2018 ( online (free of charge after registration) [accessed January 8, 2019]).