Poll (film)

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Movie
Original title Poll
Country of production Germany , Austria,
Estonia
original language German
Publishing year 2010
length 129 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 12
Rod
Director Chris Kraus
script Chris Kraus
production Alexandra Kordes
Meike Kordes
music Annette Focks
camera Daniela Knapp
cut Uta Schmidt
occupation

Poll is a fiction film by the German director and film producer Chris Kraus from 2010. The main roles are played by Paula Beer , Edgar Selge and Tambet Tuisk .

action

After her mother's death, fourteen-year-old Oda from Berlin comes to her father Ebbo's estate on the Baltic coast in Estonia . It is on the eve of the First World War , Estonia is a province of the Russian Empire and Russian soldiers are quartered in the courtyard who are hunting Estonian anarchists . Oda's father is a professor of medicine , buys corpses from the Russians and dissects them. In a former sawmill called a laboratory , he has assembled an impressive collection of specimens floating in glasses. After the divorce from Oda's mother, he is married to Milla, whose son he brings up with brutal severity.

Oda does not feel comfortable in the family, likes to stay to herself, reads, writes and explores the area. In doing so, she discovers a seriously injured Estonian anarchist in a small, dilapidated church. He doesn't want to give his name, but suggests that she call him Schnaps . She helps him and secretly nurses him on the wooden floor above her father's laboratory. There the Estonian is recovering, Oda spends a lot of time with him and the two young people feel drawn to each other. After his recovery, Schnaps wants to go back to his people and Oda wants to accompany him, which Schnaps tries in vain to talk her out of.

On the day of departure, most of the estate residents are on an outing, Oda and Schnaps are packing their things in the laboratory, but the girl is anesthetized by schnapps with chloroform . At that moment, the manager Mechmershausen enters the house, destroys most of the preparations and sets a fire - out of hatred for Oda's father, who mistreated Milla, with whom Mechmershausen has a relationship. Schnaps manages to escape from the house and knock down the steward. He looks at the horse standing by, then at the burning house, and decides to save Oda, who is lying unconscious in the attic. Half suffocated with Oda in his arms, he escapes the inferno, is captured by the manager and locked in the outbuilding. When residents and Russians return, the steward and Oda also hide in this house and after some dramatic entanglements Schnaps shoots himself - to save Oda.

background

Although the opening credits explain that it is “a true story”, the film is only loosely based on memories of the writer Oda Schaefer (1900–1988), a second-degree great-aunt of the director, who she wrote under the title Even if you dream , the clocks go published.

The historical manor Poll (Estonian Põlula ) is actually in the interior of Estonia, not on the Baltic Sea as in the film.

The father of the cinematic Oda researches in the field of brain anthropology or phrenology , which was a current branch of science at the time. Chris Kraus describes in great detail the fictional biography of Ebbo von Siering in the article Life and Work of the private scholar Ebbo von Siering - A film biography for Poll . Oda Schaefer's father, on the other hand, was a journalist.

The relationship between Germans , Russians and Estonians is decisive for the atmosphere in the film . The Baltic Germans formed the ruling class in Estonia and retained this position when Estonia came to Russia from Sweden in 1710. They cultivated their cultural ties to the West such as music and poetry. It was a kind of German “ aristocracy ” towards the Estonians, the farmers and servants. The Russian officers liked to join the German evening events and excursions - but only in the film, because there were no Russian garrisons in Estonia at the time. One stood between Moscow and Berlin, between burgeoning democratic progress and the fear of change. Saint Petersburg as the cultural center of Russia was very close. The difficult role played by the Germans in the Baltic States , who certainly sympathized with the Baltic peoples' aspirations for independence, but derived their prerogative as a German minority from loyalty to the Tsar, is simplified in the film. Again and again these tensions between the claims of the Russians and the old rights of the Germans become clear. This is overlaid by the freedom struggle of the Estonian anarchists.

For the film, some actors tried to learn the Baltic German pronunciation, which, in the opinion of the Federal Chairman of the German-Baltic Society , Frank von Auer , only partially succeeded.

After the long search for a suitable manor was unsuccessful, it was decided to build the manor in Poll especially for the film. The house, "better maybe a nightmare house", was built as a "mixture of Palladio and Alaska" directly in the water. The location was near the village of Matsi in the southwestern Estonian municipality of Varbla . location

The world premiere of the film was on September 16, 2010 at the Toronto International Film Festival . After further festival participation, Poll started in German cinemas on February 3, 2011. By the end of June 2011, the film had around 125,000 viewers in Germany. Since October 21, 2011 it has also been available on DVD.

Reviews

Carsten Heidböhmer writes on Stern.de : “In wonderful, opulent pictures,“ Poll ”captures the mood in the Baltic States shortly before the outbreak of the First World War. [... Kraus] takes [...] the freedom to change many [historical] details. That benefits the dramaturgy of the film. In contrast to Michael Haneke's film " The White Ribbon ", which takes place at the same time, however, Kraus' film largely lacks the abyssal that gives one a feeling for the approaching catastrophe. "

Alexander Cammann's verdict at the time : “This film is certainly not formally advanced. But Kraus narrates the scenes so perfectly and in the manner of a great European auteur film so vividly that the faces and images are not easily forgotten. "

Martina Knoben in the Süddeutsche : "That's what 'Poll' is like, which in its entirety looks as megalomaniacal and cobbled together as the manor house of the title, in the end also a women's film."

Hans Jörg Rother in the FAZ : 'Poll' is a remarkable film that unfortunately missed the train to size.

Rüdiger Suchsland wrote on February 3, 2011 in Die Welt : There is a lack of courage to leave spaces. Nevertheless, everything does not come together right in the end: And that is probably due to Kraus himself, whose direction sends meaning signals and exclamation marks everywhere, hardly allowing the viewer a moment of rest. "Poll" is a film under pressure .

Philipp Bühler from the Berliner Zeitung wrote: "Poll" has a thousand extras, but no main character with whom one feverishes. It is, with heart and soul, an equipment film. And: As an independent producer of a German auteur film, to make a co-production with 24 countries and to loosen up eight million euros is a masterpiece .

Dimitrios Athanassiou from moviemaze.de sees Poll as part of a series of over-ambitious German productions: “The story in the last days before the outbreak of World War I seems remote. Score and the attempt to produce seemingly poetic pictures underline this, but the wooden rhythm, the lack of loving figure drawing and the leaden structure do not make up for it. "

José Garcia writes: “'Poll' is also convincing in terms of film: from the captivating production design with the mansion as a special eye-catcher to the costumes and the great panorama pictures by cameraman Daniela Knapp to the intelligent narrative rhythm. Not entirely convincing, of course: the pathos-laden film music by Annette Focks, which repeatedly pushes itself too much into the foreground. "

Awards

  • Bavarian Film Award 2010:
    • Best Actor (Edgar Selge)
    • Best Young Actress (Paula Beer)
    • Best production design ( Silke Buhr )
  • Film Festival Rome (Festival Internazionale del Film di Roma) 2010:
  • Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2010
    • Best director
  • Biberach Film Festival 2010
    • Golden beaver for the best film among the
  • German Film Award 2011 :
    • Best Supporting Actor (Richy Müller)
    • Best camera / image creation
    • Best production design
    • Best costume design
    • Nomination - Best Make-up Image
  • 15th European Film Festival in Bucharest
    • Best Film (Audience Award)
  • 18th International Minsk Film Festival "Listapad"
    • Audience award

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Age rating for Poll . Youth Media Commission .
  2. ↑ German Baltic Biographical Lexicon 1710–1960, Cologne 1970, ISBN 3-412-42670-9 , p. 412/13.
  3. ↑ Oda Schaefer: "Even when you dream, the clocks go". Edition Avicenna, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-941913-08-0
  4. ↑ Life and work of the private scholar Ebbo von Siering - A film biography for Poll
  5. ↑ Frank von Auer: Half-Baltic Cacophony.  ( 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. in: Messages from Baltic life@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.deutschbalten.de  
  6. ↑ Interview with the director Chris Kraus
  7. ↑ Eno-Gerrit Link: Ajaloolise filmi tegijad otsivad Pärnus Näitlejaid Pärnu Postimees, May 8, 2009, Estonian, viewed February 10, 2011
  8. ↑ Poll at filmportal.de , accessed on March 3, 2013
  9. ↑ Film hit list: June 2011 Filmförderungsanstalt , accessed on July 28, 2011
  10. ^ Carsten Heidböhmer: On the eve of the original catastrophe ( memento from February 7, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), Stern.de from February 4, 2011
  11. ↑ Alexander Cammann: Film "Poll": Where evil sits. In: zeit.de. February 3, 2011, accessed December 16, 2014 .
  12. ↑ Martina Knoben: In the cinema: Poll - The terrible girl. In: sueddeutsche.de. February 3, 2011, accessed December 16, 2014 .
  13. ↑ Hans-Jörg Rother: Dead anarchists on the dissecting table: "Poll". In: FAZ.net . February 2, 2011, accessed December 16, 2014 .
  14. ↑ Rüdiger Suchsland: Oda in the death mill and her sad first love. In: welt.de . February 3, 2011, accessed December 16, 2014 .
  15. ↑ Philipp Bühler: Honor the Balts before they cool off Berliner Zeitung of February 3, accessed on February 12, 2014
  16. ↑ Poll at moviemaze.de, accessed on September 17, 2011
  17. ↑ Poll at textezumfilm.de, accessed on November 26, 2011
  18. ↑ German Film Award - Sea, Always Sea. In: sueddeutsche.de. April 8, 2011, accessed December 16, 2014 .
  19. ↑ "Poll" wins the main prize in Bucharest  ( 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. , filmecho.de from May 17, 2011@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.filmecho.de  
  20. ↑ Listapad 2011 - Awards ( Memento from December 28, 2011 in the Internet Archive )

Web links