Polar (2009)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Polar |
| Country of production | Germany , Switzerland |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 2009 |
| length | 29 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Michael Koch |
| script | Michael Koch, Juliane Grossheim |
| production | Elena von Saucken |
| camera | Bernhard Keller |
| cut | Stefan Stabenow |
| occupation | |
| |
Polar is a short film by Michael Koch . The multi-award-winning film premiered at the Berlinale 2009 and is the thesis of director Michael Koch at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne .
action
Luis goes to the Swiss Alps to visit his father Henryk. He picks him up from the post bus and takes him to his remote mountain hut by car. Apparently the two of them haven't seen each other in years, so they sit next to each other in the car like strangers. Luis tells with subliminal pride that he passed the entrance exam at a renowned drum school, while his father needs a few tries before he dares to describe his current life situation to his son. He has a new wife, Sophie, and, as it turns out a little later, a little son, Elias. So Luis unexpectedly ends up in a new, alien family cosmos: Luis gets on right away with his father's girlfriend, who is only a little older than him. He looks after Elias, the crying baby, which Luis's new parents keep handing over to his care. Luis is clearly looking for closeness and recognition from his father. He tries to overcome the distance between the two, but instead Luis encounters the same unchanged coldness and lack of insight with Henryk that Luis once let escape from his father. Henryk lets him run nowhere in his advances, works sullenly and taciturn in and around the house and has neither eyes nor ears for his now grown-up son and his concerns. So not only the new girlfriend and their child stand between father and son, but a lot of unspoken things. They face Luis and Henryk like two Poles. And so gradually the frustration grows on the alpine pasture and Luis provokes a discharge.
Reviews
“Polar shows a perfection of compression that is unparalleled even in short films. Michael Koch and his team gained nothing from the material but the concentrate of the narrative. Everything that could distract from the real thing, any basically unnecessary jewelry has gone overboard and gives way to an astonishingly focused clarity. It starts with such banal moments as Luis' arrival at the alpine pasture. Luis doesn't know what to expect, he's nervous, he doesn't know his father's new wife, so he's focused on the situation. The great cameraman Bernhard Keller now remains consistently on this face, remains completely with Luis in this situation, while the blurring of the background suggests what is probably the world's most beautiful alpine panorama. But no pan, no insert in the montage, no distraction from the focus of the narrative to insignificant incidental matters. And as if the panorama itself were capitulating to such consistency of all those involved, the weather draws in the next scene, deep and dense clouds hang in the valley, and dripping fog helps to focus. Polar is a masterpiece of reduction that can only be achieved in short films. "
“Everything about the quiet film about the longing for closeness and the difficulty of attaining it convinced us: the frugal dialogues - not a word too many -, the subtle acting - no superfluous gestures - and an overall reduced narrative that makes a lot of things - and leaves it open, but this creates even more space for fine and ambiguous nuances. The confident camera remains consistently with the characters and places the barren landscape in the picture in such a way that it seems to reflect their mental states. So reduction at all levels. The result is a film of great atmospheric density that touches deeply without being in the least sentimental. "
Awards
- Michael Koch receives the award for the best Swiss film
- Honorable mention for Michel Koch in the competition for the Dialogue en Perspective award
- First Steps 2009
- Nomination for the First Steps Award in the feature films up to 60 minutes category
- Nomination for the First Steps Award in the Best Screenplay category
- German Camera Prize 2009
- Bernhard Keller receives the German Camera Prize in the Best Short Film category
- Michael Koch receives the short film award in gold
Web links
- Polar in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Official website
Individual evidence
- ↑ Oliver Baumgarten: Almtraum. Cut , accessed October 26, 2009 .
- ↑ German Short Film Award 2009 awarded. (No longer available online.) Press and Information Office of the Federal Government , formerly in the original ; Retrieved October 30, 2009 . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
