North Sea is Murder Sea
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | North Sea is Murder Sea |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1976 |
| length | 87 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Hark Bohm |
| script | Hark Bohm |
| production | Hark Bohm |
| music | Udo Lindenberg |
| camera | Wolfgang Treu |
| cut | Heidi Genée |
| occupation | |
| |
The youth film Nordsee ist Mordsee is a German drama from 1976 .
action
The 14-year-old Uwe lives with his parents in a high-rise estate in Hamburg-Wilhelmsburg . His father gets drunk regularly and beats Uwe and his mother too. Uwe relieves his frustration outside of his family, he is the leader of a youth gang. Together with the other gang members, he terrorizes classmates and other children. One of their victims is Genghis, an Asian boy.
Uwe cracks a slot machine together with his gang. Uwe keeps the loot to himself and does not want to divide it up until later. Contrary to the agreement, he uses the money to buy a switchblade. On the way back from the shop he discovers Genghis and secretly observes him. As Uwe notes, Genghis has built a raft and is launching it into the water. When Uwe later meets up with the other young people, they ask about the money. Uwe states that his father found the money. The gang members become suspicious, but initially stick to Uwe.
The next day Genghis comes back to his raft. He notices that it has been destroyed. Uwe shows up with his gang. They mock Genghis again, who then furiously attacks them. There is a duel between Uwe and Dschingis, which Dschingis finally wins; the others run away during the fight. Genghis forces Uwe to help him repair the raft.
The following day, Uwe meets up with his gang again. The latter distances itself from him because he has not yet divided up the money from breaking into the slot machine and the action with Genghis went wrong. In order to strengthen his position again, Uwe explains that he could drive a car. Shortly afterwards, when a customer leaves his car on the street with the engine running in front of a nearby bank branch, Uwe makes a quick decision to take the wheel and drives away. The following joyride doesn't last very long, however, and he is caught by the police . The officers hand Uwe over to his father, who has been drinking again, is beside himself with anger and violently beats Uwe.
The next day the traces of the abuse can still be seen and Uwe decides to skip school. He approaches Genghis with a request to excuse him at school. After school, the boys meet. Genghis offers Uwe that he can find shelter with him. His mother is against it because she thinks it is illegal to hide a child. Genghis doesn't understand and is completely angry. Together they decide to run away. They travel on Dschingis' raft from Wilhelmsburg towards the port of Hamburg. But the self-made construction turns out to be too clumsy, and on the spur of the moment the two steal a dinghy with which they sail further down the Lower Elbe. After a few hours, Dschingis' mother noticed her son's disappearance and reported missing persons to the police. Uwe's father only learns of his son's disappearance from the police.
The young people spend the night on the banks of the Elbe. The next morning they find out that they are near a juvenile prison - the Hahnöfersand prison - and worry about the fact that the prisoners are hardly older than themselves. You continue down the Elbe, closer and closer to its confluence with the North Sea. When a boat of the water police comes across them, they can escape through a shallow strip of reeds into the Adjacent Elbe. They leave their boat and hide on the bank. At night they break into a kiosk because they are hungry.
They narrowly escape a police patrol that the two boys discovered the next morning. Uwe and Dschingis steal another sailing boat and go on tour again. They know they'll be caught next time. But in the end Uwe says: “Maybe next time. But better get your ass full next time than right now. Think logically! The longer we stay away, the softer the old become. And those from the court. "
A song by Udo Lindenberg is played for the picture of the boat in front of the setting sun, the chorus of which "I often dream of stealing a sailing boat and simply scooping it off ..." is also displayed as text. This motto also appears on the movie poster.
Discussion on age rating
In its meeting on March 24, 1976, the FSK's working committee refused to approve the film for people aged 12 and over. Hans Günther Pflaum compared North Sea is Mordsee in his article Reality is questionable from April 26, 1976 in the Süddeutsche Zeitung with beating films and military clothes that were approved by the FSK from 12 and 6 years. The North Sea film, on the other hand, is withheld from 14-year-olds because it shows reality and “how you can defend yourself against the existing”. This is "no longer an educational decision, but a political one."
Hans C. Blumenberg wrote a critical article in Die Zeit on April 30, 1976 under the title Kinderfrei . With its ideas about the protection of minors, the FSK closed its eyes to reality and ideals from the day before yesterday. His allegations culminated in the question: "Who will protect us from an organization that continues to practice political censorship over and over again, now under the guise of protecting minors?"
After the meeting of the main committee on May 13, 1976, the legal committee of the FSK as a third instance finally approved the film from the age of 12. On May 21, 1976, Die Zeit attributed this success to the press attacks under their leadership.
Reviews
“Hark Bohm's fourth feature film (and second feature film) deals with the lousy living conditions that many adolescents of the post-war generation of workers suffered from. The result is a believable adventure film that thematizes the lifestyle of a youth growing up without love - a modern Huckleberry Finn story "
“Original and critical. In the last few years, films from the Federal Republic of Germany have become known in many countries. Young film directors such as Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Volker Schlöndorff have had success with several films at international film festivals, for example in Cannes and New York. For example, her films 'Aguirre, the Wrath of God', 'Fear Eats the Soul' and 'The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum' have won many awards. Besides these three celebrities, there are a number of good young directors. One even speaks of a 'wave of young filmmakers' in the Federal Republic of Germany. Her films deal critically with human and social problems, show a lot of originality and are also well photographed. Hark Bohm, the author and director of the film 'Nordsee ist Mordsee', is also one of the young filmmakers, although he is 39 years old. "
"The Sunday afternoon phantasy of a Blankenese bourgeois child flirts in vain with the reality of proletarian children who cannot afford trance and dreams because in their reality they would simply fall on the face."
Trivia
The filming locations are predominantly in the large housing estate known today as the "Bahnhofsviertel Wilhelmsburg" , east of the Wilhelmsburg S-Bahn station and on the Vering Canal , a branch canal from the Reiherstieg . Uwe's family lives in the Neuenfelder Straße 86 skyscraper . The flak tower on Rotenhäuser Feld , the Maximilian Kolbe Church , the Bonifatius Church and the Groß Sand water tower next to it can also be seen in several shots . The large playground had to give way in the course of the construction of the Wilhelmsburg S-Bahn station in 1983 and the associated urban redesign with the bus station and the shopping center. This location was partially redesigned as part of the new center of the district as part of the International Building Exhibition (2007-2013) .
The actress who played the mother of Genghis is also the birth mother of the actor Genghis Bowakov .
literature
- Jürgen Kniep: “No youth approval!”. Film censorship in West Germany 1949–1990. Wallstein Verlag Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8353-0638-7 .
Web links
- North Sea Mordsee in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- North Sea is Mordsee at filmportal.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Clearance certificate for the North Sea is Mordsee . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , October 2008 (PDF; test number: 48 125 V / DVD / UMD).
- ↑ Film poster North Sea is Mordsee on blogspot.com
- ↑ Jürgen Kniep: No youth approval! , P. 269.
- ↑ Jürgen Kniep: No youth approval! , P. 269.
- ↑ Prisma-Online: North Sea is Murder Sea ; last accessed on October 6, 2009
- ↑ Ute Bleich: Stuyvesant in Niggertown . In: Der Spiegel . No. 19 , 1976, p. 214-216 ( Online - May 3, 1976 ).
