Opera Ball (1998)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Opera Ball |
| Country of production | Austria |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1998 |
| length | 180 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Urs Egger |
| script | Gundula Leni without a room |
| production |
Bernd Eichinger , Martin Moszkowicz , Christine Rothe |
| music | Dominic Roth |
| camera | Lukas Strebel |
| cut | Hans Funck |
| occupation | |
| |
Opernball is an Austrian political thriller by Urs Egger from 1998 . The television production is usually broadcast in two parts with the titles Opera Ball - 1: Die Victims and Opera Ball - 2: The perpetrators . The plot is based on the novel of the same name by Josef Haslinger . The two-part television production was first broadcast on March 15, 1998 on ORF .
action
prehistory
It is February in Vienna , and the opera ball for the top of society, the annual social highlight, is taking place in the Vienna State Opera . In front of the entrance there is the almost traditional opera ball demonstration, which is carried out by anti-capitalist activists. This year, after previous provocations between the fronts via the media, the crowd is particularly upset and the police are struggling to keep the crowd at bay. Kurt Frazer, who works as the broadcasting director for a French television company that broadcasts across Europe, because the ORF did not receive the broadcasting rights for the first time, repeatedly interrupts the broadcast for pictures from the "front", where the young reporter Gabrielle Becker reports in the middle of the turmoil . The demonstration got out of hand and riots broke out, the crowd stormed the Opera Passage , where they were surrounded by the police and chaos hurled Molotov cocktails into the crowd. There are numerous injuries on both sides, and Gabrielle Becker almost falls between the fronts.
The attack
While the entire police and special forces in the city are concentrated on the riots, a masked group approaches the central ventilation system of the State Opera through ducts and ventilation shafts. Meanwhile, Kurt Frazer's TV station is reporting from the opera, where a celebrity makes fun of the demonstrators during an interview, but suddenly feels a scratchy throat and can only talk with an increasingly severe cough, until one can hardly understand him. Suddenly a collective cough breaks out in large parts of the opera - the 4,000 to 5,000 visitors panic. The orchestra can hardly play either and collapses within a few seconds. The ball-goers flock to the exits, but most of them don't make it nearly that far as the poison gas that has been introduced acts quickly, knocking people to the ground one after the other, killing them. Rescue workers rescue some people from the opera building with gas masks, but are hopelessly overwhelmed.
The next day the police hold a press conference and announce that over 3,000 people have died from hydrogen cyanide. It is proudly announced that the perpetrators are also known, as five of them were lying dead next to the gas bottles. Questions from journalists about the motives, backgrounds, backers and whether there was any premature information can supposedly not be answered. Kurt Frazer, who lost his son, the cameraman, in the attack, now decides to investigate the matter himself.
Kurt Frazer begins his research
Kurt Frazer learns of the existence of a conspiracy group that calls itself The Folk Loyalists . This group, previously called the Volksdeutsche Movement , acts from a Nazi background. Their leader is a spiritually inspired racist known as a Mormon . He sees his group as "chosen" and pursues the goal of a racially pure country. Contact with other neo-Nazi groups, he rejects unlike Feilböck , which also claims the leadership for himself, vehemently as it classifies the action as primitive and not effective. There is a conflict between Feilböck and the Mormon , which turns out to the disadvantage of Feilböck, whose little finger of the right hand is chopped off, as the tattoo of the group can be seen, which he is no longer worth wearing. The whole thing happened two years before the attack. Feilböck then fled to the police, where he wanted to testify about the planned attack on the opera ball, but demanded impunity, which he could not or would not be given. He then disappeared without a trace and the police did nothing.
the last witness
Kurt Frazer and his colleague find the group more and more on the trail. In a property on Mallorca he meets the last living member of the organization. Kurt Frazer persuades the young man, named engineer , to tell the story and background on tape. It turns out that a high-ranking member of the Viennese police knew about the group's plans, but grossly underestimated their dangerousness. During the interview, the engineer realizes that it is no coincidence that he was the only one who survived. The Mormon had chosen him as the new chosen one. The death of the attackers in the attack was also no accident. The Mormon viewed this death as a sacrifice. He told his accomplices that the gas bottles only contained carbon monoxide , so they had no fear of dying in the attack. The engineer becomes enraged and does not see himself equal to the burden he now bears. He shoots Kurt Frazer first and then judges himself.
Terminal stop at Vienna Airport
A speech by a high- ranking military man and his own statements make it clear why the high-ranking police officer who knew about it tolerated the activities of the people loyal to the people and even let the Mormons live in his apartment before the attack: a constant threat to the population should lead to an extreme strengthening of the state security apparatus which, however, seems to take place in a very nationalist-minded background. Several short scenes are shown of a rally led by the successor of the former policeman in the shadow of Austrian flags, and the audience consists only of policemen, soldiers and snipers posted on the roof. When Frazer returns to Vienna, he is arrested by the police at the airport. The tapes, which also contained incriminating material against this police officer , are to be removed from him and destroyed. The police officer concerned personally takes the tapes from him and then lets Frazer go. However, it was the wrong tapes and Frazer can hand the correct ones to his young colleague. He advises her to "really let it crash" and not be intimidated. Her time has now come to assert herself as a journalist and she is capable of it. He himself, who has meanwhile also been abandoned by his English-speaking wife, has been banned from staying in Austria and is therefore traveling on to a friend in Rome, where he wants to start a new life without reporting on catastrophes and war.
background
According to Josef Haslinger's original, the film sees itself as a thriller with a political and socially critical background. Breaks and tendencies that actually exist in Austrian society are taken to extremes until they collide: negligent, incompetent and corrupt police officers, an underestimated and almost undisturbed neo-Nazi scene, increasing contradictions and injustices between the upper and lower classes, between rich and poor as well as powerful and powerless, which in reality calls for “opera ball demonstrators” every year. Last but not least, the media are generally described as a "sensational" horde, which, at least in the film, recklessly fuels a hostile mood for good headlines, which ultimately leads to escalation in the film.
production
The production company was Satel Film together with ORF . The distributor is Constantin Film .
Reviews
The lexicon of international films wrote that the film was "lavishly" staged and offered "exciting entertainment" . He " diluted " the novel, but still set "some oppressive and thought-provoking accents".
Awards
In 1998 Franka Potente received the Bavarian Film Prize for her portrayal . In 1998, the film won the "Golden Nymph" awarded at the Festival de Télévision de Monte-Carlo as the best miniseries, Urs Egger won the Silver Nymph .
Walter Schmidinger and Hans Funck received the "RTL Golden Lion Award" in 1998, Heiner Lauterbach and Franka Potente were nominated for the award. In 1998 Lukas Strebel and Hans Funck were nominated for the "German Camera Award". The film itself was nominated for the Adolf Grimme Prize in 1999.
- TV Festival Monte Carlo 1999:
- "Golden Nymph" as the best multi-part
- "Silver Nymph" for the best director
- Chicago TV Festival 1999:
- "Gold Plaque Award Special Achievement" (Miniseries; Best Director)
- Media magazine Gong :
- "Golden Gong" for the best director
- "Golden Gong" for the best script
- Bavarian TV Prize 1998 for Heiner Lauterbach and Franka Potente
- Telestar for Heiner Lauterbach
- Cinema Jupiter as Best TV Film 1998
- "Golden Screen Austria" (Best TV Film 1998)
- Golden Lion for Walther Schmidinger as best actor in a supporting role
- Golden Lion as "Special Film Editing Award" for Hans Funck
Web links
- Opera Ball in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Opera ball at filmportal.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Opera Ball. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed October 5, 2016 .