Play (film)

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Movie
Original title Play
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2019
length 89 minutes
Rod
Director Philip Koch
script Hamid Baroua ,
Philip Koch
production Hamid Baroua,
Christoph Szonn ,
Philipp Schall
music Michael Kadelbach
camera Alexander Fischerkoesen
cut Hans Horn ,
Stine Sonne Munch
occupation

Play is a German TV film from 2019. Directed by Philip Koch , who also wrote the script together with Hamid Baroua . Emma Bading can be seen in the lead role as the daughter of the Reitwein couple, who are addicted to gambling, by Oliver Masucci and Victoria Mayer .

action

For 17-year-old Jennifer Reitwein, sport is just as much a part of her teenage life as gaming . Jennifer has only just moved from Wuppertal to Munich with her parents Frank and Ariane and cannot really make friends with her classmates. She feels uncomfortable and alone. Fixed by the new virtual reality game Avalonia , daddling is gradually becoming the center of her life. Jennifer neglects her school and family responsibilities. Especially when she gets to know the wood elf Tyriel as the wood elf Sindruin, who is actually 18-year-old Pierre, a student at her new school. Jennifer's mother first tries to control the time her daughter spends on the computer using a password. All warnings and prohibitions of the parents ricochet off the girl, Jennifer stubbornly defends every second of the game and betrays her parents. Since that doesn't work, the parents resort to harder means and take away their computer and mobile phone, but Jennifer finds a way to continue - now secretly - to immerse herself excessively in the fantasy game world she is striving for, only there she seems happy be. But the balance between the real and the digital world is increasingly falling apart for everyone involved.

Ultimately, when she is about to go into therapy, Jennifer flees from her parents to a lonely holiday home in the forest and reaches the highest level in the computer game. After a week has passed, her father finds out her location with Pierre's help and deletes her character shortly before she can kill the boss in the game, which causes Jennifer to be pure horror and helpless perplexity. When her father has reached the little house in the forest and tries to calmly talk to his daughter through the locked door, Jennifer suddenly hears the voice of the enemy dragon from the game again and flees into the forest. Her father follows her, but is mistaken for the final boss out of the game and seriously injured with a knife. It is only when her mother arrives in the forest that Jennifer realizes what she has done. She drops the bloody knife in her hand and begs: "Help me!"

Interspersed in the film are scenes in which Jennifer is in psychiatric treatment. Her therapist tells her that both parents are there every day and that her father has forgiven her.

production

Production notes, background

Hamid Baroua and Christoph Szonn produced the film with their jointly founded production company Sappralot Productions on behalf of BR (editors: Cornelius Conrad, Claudia Simionescu) and Degeto (Birgit Titze) for ARD . With the film they also wanted to “prove” that a “modern, narrative connection between real film and animation of the highest quality on German television could succeed”. The shooting lasted from May 23 to June 19, 2018 and took place in and around Munich .

When asked whether she could identify with the gaming world and play now and then, Emma Bading replied that she “ had never played any other game other than ' Sims3 '”, and she first went into the gaming world to prepare for the role had to arrive. It wasn't that easy at all. When asked whether she could understand what was going on in Jennifer, she said she could understand all students "who dream into other worlds in order to feel strong and important or needed there". When asked why it was important to him to take on a role in Play, Oliver Masucci, who plays the main character's father, replied that he wanted to work with Philip Koch, who is "an innovative director and writer", "Do his thing" and know "the world" about which he writes and "have the strength" to "enforce his artistic imagination". Victoria Mayer, who is the mother of the main character, said that she was “immediately touched” by the story of Play : “To see how these three people, although they love each other, lose their openness and trust until they experience each other only as opponents, with distrust and anger ”. Philip Koch stated that “the greatest challenge in terms of content, especially at the book level”, was to “tell a main character who was ambivalent, cryptic and complex”. In this context, the director praised the “great work by Emma Bading”.

publication

On June 29, 2019, Play was premiered as a world premiere at the Munich Film Festival in the New German Television series . The film was first broadcast on television on September 11, 2019 in the ARD program Das Erste .

reception

Awards

criticism

The reaction to the film was mixed from both the press and the audience. On Spiegel Online, Arno Frank spoke of a "great drama with a pull". Play is "anything but an educational case study with a waving index finger". Director Philip Koch and co-author Hamid Baroua made "not primarily the danger, but the pull of good games tangible". One does not have to "imagine that some people would like to stay in 'Avalonia'". See it. The "second strength" of the film is "Emma Bading, her Jennifer an event". The "joy and the anger, the curiosity and the boredom, the euphoria and the despair - everything that torments the driven person" can be "read with delightful clarity". Frank concluded that for “the general public”, “Play” was “the most exciting and, in the end, most poignant approach to the topic that has probably existed on fictional television so far”.

In the Stern, on the other hand, it was read that the media reported “mainly on the dark side of the Internet”. Philip hit “in the same vein” with his TV drama and also tried “one or the other cliché”. “For an ARD television film” the ensemble from Play “could definitely be seen”, it goes on to say, with reference to the participation of Emma Bading, Oliver Masucci and Victoria Mayer. The film “demonize” gaming: “If you take the scenario presented in Play at face value, then there seems to be almost no other option than to slide into an addiction as soon as you start to regularly devote yourself to a computer game. "

Rainer Tittelbach from tittelbach.tv gave the film the highest rating with six stars and said that portraying an addiction in a television film was “a challenge”. In this case, the makers would have "done everything right dramaturgically and cinematically". The film not only tells "of the addictive potential of virtual online games, but also reflects the fascination of the phenomenon". The fact that the viewer is ready “to go through the film with the sick heroine” is due “not least and above all to the excellent leading actress: whether psychological, physical, iconographic - bading [is] a force!” She embodies her role “With everything an actor could bring”. In conclusion, Tittelbach states: “The viewer dives into the gaming space again and again. A number of fully animated animation sequences serve as the medium for this. This is also a novelty: You have never seen anything like this in a German television film. "

Kathrin Hollmer wrote in the Süddeutsche Zeitung that the film takes its audience “into a world of games that is not about appearance and popularity, but about levels and experience points collected”. A “plus point of the film” is “that Jennifer doesn't correspond to the cliché picture of a pale basement gambler”. Hollmer referred to a statement by Franz Joseph Freisleder, the medical director of the kbo-Heckscher clinic for child and adolescent psychiatry in Munich, who had said at a press screening that the film was “relatively close to what we also see in children's and experience adolescent psychiatry ”. Hollmer also praised the "excellent game" of the leading actress Emma Bading. The critic also noted that another strength of the film was “that it does not demonize computer games despite all the dangers”.

Oliver Armknecht, who rated the film in film reviews , saw it differently . The drama "goes to great lengths to illuminate the inner workings of the young people sufficiently that the motivation is evident". However, Jennifer makes it "with her distant nature not necessarily easy for the viewer to actually like her". Armknecht also praised Emma Bading as a “talented young actress” who knows how to “credibly portray this jumble of emotions, even if the script does not allow her a lot of variety”. Play is a film that "has chosen a topic that is certainly relevant", but has its own difficulties in dealing with it. It is true that it is “worth seeing in parts”, especially since the film was also “extremely competently cast alongside Bading”. "Despite the tragic story in and of itself" leaves one "but this here largely cold".

Matthias Hannemann asked the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung whether the ARD film 'Play' , which shows how a seventeen-year-old girl is addicted to computer games, convincingly expresses what parents would be afraid of. What the film shows is not exaggerated. Play takes on a topic that should not be underestimated and that moves many parents. However, the "film staged with all sorts of image, sound and digital effects, without wanting to, amounts to scaremongering". The "fear that video games could plunge the youth into disaster" is "deep in society". Hannemann went on to write: “The psychogram drawn by the authors, which explains Jennifer's susceptibility to computer game addiction, is a success.” The film gives food for thought for discussion.

The film service praised the film, but also restricted it: “A (television) drama in the lead role impressively played with imaginative trick shots, but which describes the dangers of computer game addiction in a simplistic and striking way. The story of an insecure girl who is looking for a place in life turns out to be more gripping. "

Audience rating

Games Wirtschaft wrote: “If the ARD had planned to pick up the young audience with 'Play' , then this plan worked: The market share among 14 to 49 year olds was a very good 8 percent. Almost 2.5 million viewers [quota: 2.49 million viewers, 9.0% market share] tuned in, but in total the audience ratings were below the average on Wednesday evening. "

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Statement by Hamid Baroua and Christoph Szonn see page daserste.de
  2. ↑ For questions to Emma Bading see page daserste.de
  3. ↑ For questions to Oliver Masucci see page daserste.de
  4. ↑ For questions to Victoria Mayer see page daserste.de
  5. ↑ For questions to Philip Koch see page daserste.de
  6. ↑ Play. In: Catalog of the Munich Film Festival 2019. Retrieved on September 12, 2019 .
  7. ↑ a b Computer game addiction : 2.5 million watch ARD feature film Play see page gameswirtschaft.de. Retrieved September 12, 2019.
  8. ^ Arno Frank : ARD film about computer game addiction. Paranoia behind the VR glasses In: Spiegel Online , September 11, 2019.
    Retrieved September 12, 2019.
  9. ↑ TV tip "Play" ( Memento from September 27, 2019 in the Internet Archive ). In: Stern , September 11, 2019.
  10. ^ A b Rainer Tittelbach : TV film "Play". Emma Bading, Masucci, Mayer, Baroua, Philip Koch. Journey into darkness see page tittelbach.tv. Retrieved September 12, 2019.
  11. ↑ Kathrin Hollmer: BR film "Play". More beautiful than in real life In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, September 11, 2019. Accessed on September 12, 2019.
  12. ↑ Play see page film-rezensions.de. Retrieved September 12, 2019.
  13. ^ Matthias Hannemann: Film about computer game addiction. Off to Avalonia In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , September 11, 2019. Accessed on September 17, 2019.
  14. ↑ Play. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed February 22, 2020 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used