Battering ram (film)

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Movie
Original title battering ram
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2010
length 63 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Marvin Kren
script Benjamin Hessler
production Melanie Berke
Sigrid Hoerner
music Marco Dreckkötter
Stefan Will
camera Moritz Schultheiss
cut Silke Olthoff
occupation

Rammbock is a German horror film by director Marvin Kren from 2010. The film was produced in cooperation with ZDF and appeared in the series Das kleine Fernsehspiel .

action

Michael traveled to Berlin especially to give his ex-girlfriend Gabi the keys to the apartment. He secretly hopes to save the relationship. When he comes to the apartment, however, he finds only two craftsmen. Harper, the younger of the two, doesn't know where the tenant is either. Michael tries to reach Gabi on the cell phone, but only gets the mailbox. Suddenly the older handyman has a fit of rage and attacks Harper. Michael intervenes and the two of them can barricade themselves in the apartment. However, Michael loses his cell phone. When the two of them look out the window into the backyard, they see that the craftsman is not alone. Quite a number of people have turned into bloodthirsty beasts and attack everyone else. On television, the news reports of a rapidly expanding uprising. However, the police promise to get everything under control shortly, they should barricade themselves first and wait. The two decide to spend the night in the apartment.

The next morning the situation got worse. The television only brings a test image . An endless loop runs on the radio. Much of Germany has been infected by a virus that is transmitted through fluid exchange, for example through scratches or bite wounds. However, the frenzy and hunger for human flesh only occur after an adrenaline rush , otherwise the infection subsides within several hours to days. The big cities are evacuated by sea.

Harper and Michael try to get the cell phone in the stairwell. Armed with a tinkered twill they reach the cell phone, but the zombies rush into the apartment behind them. Now the only thing left for both of them is the bedroom as a room. Harper calls his parents, but even there only the answering machine responds. They can communicate with other survivors of the residential complex through the window. One suggests swapping sedatives for food because his wife is infected and needs urgent drugs. Another explains that the woman in the neighboring apartment is hoarding sedatives because she is drug addict. When one of the tenants hanged himself the next morning, Michael and Harper decide to make their way to the neighboring apartment. They construct a battering ram and use it to tear down the brick wall facing the neighbor. Michael injured his arm while climbing through the wall of the apartment. The older neighbor also changes, and the zombies from Gabi's apartment are now storming through the hole made in the wall. Harper hides in a closet while Michael gets to the attic via a pantry. In the attic he meets Gabi with her new friend Kai. When Kai sees Michael’s wound, he has to leave the attic via the roof, but the two of them still give him some sedative pills.

Michael knocks his way back through the roof into the stairwell and knocks on the apartment of the man whose wife is infected. He hands the two of them the medication, but it is already too late for the woman. The two rush out the window. In the meantime, Harper has found a way to stop the zombies. With the flash of a camera he can push the zombies out of the house and lock the backyard. Michael and Harper meet Ulf and Anita, who are also still healthy. They decide to take some flashes and cameras to a two-man boat and flee across the water. During the night, however, Ulf sneaks away alone. When the other three notice this, Michael storms after him and is able to get the cameras back. However, he is bitten and is now infected. Before he transforms, however, he constructs Anita and Harper a vehicle with which they can get to the boat. Alone in the inner courtyard he meets Gabi, who has now also been transformed. The two embrace while the virus breaks out on Michael. Anita and Harper escape across the river.

background

Battering ram was created based on an idea by Marvin Kren and Benjamin Hessler (screenplay), who both had long dreamed of making a zombie film . It is Marvin Kren's feature film debut as a director. In contrast to many zombie films, the directors do not see their work as a splatter film , violence is shown very little. Instead, the two define the genre as a “reaction to social doom and gloom” and see their film in line with recent developments in the genre, such as 28 Days Later and Colin .

The film was shot in Berlin . Battering ram is kept very gloomy, except for a few splashes of color, the film shows a very dreary Berlin. Most of the scenes take place in a residential building and on its backyard. Exterior shots were only made for Anita and Harper's escape on the Spree . With its few locations, the film is reminiscent of a chamber play and is intended to evoke associations with The Window to the Courtyard .

The film was produced by Moneypenny Filmproduktion in cooperation with ZDF ( Das kleine Fernsehspiel ).

publication

Battering ram was presented between January 18 and 24, 2010 at the Max Ophüls Preis film festival in Saarbrücken, where it received the audience award and the “award for the best medium-length film”. He was then seen on the Diagonale in Graz , where he received two honorable mentions. Battering ram was the opening film at the Achtung Berlin Film Festival 2010 and was awarded as the best feature film there. It was also screened at the Five Lakes Film Festival and the 63rd Festival del film Locarno . The official cinema release in Germany was on September 9th, and the film started one day later in Austria.

The film was released on DVD on December 3, 2010. The TV first broadcast took place on December 12, 2010 on ZDFneo .

criticism

Overall, the film was received very positively by the critics. Der Standard praised the battering ram as a "sympathetic unironic zombie film" in the style of 28 Days Later and REC . According to Spiegel Online , the film is convincing “as a carefully Germanized imitation of international models”.

“Last but not least, battering ram reminds in its best moments - and there are some - that the good zombie films were never made for the sake of the sheer (shiver) effect, but that they were always a parable of an increasingly wolfish society, in who is man's greatest enemy. And even love, that all-purpose weapon against eroding living conditions, releases the brave heroes of this film into a more than questionable future. "

- Joachim Kurz : Kino-Zeit.de

“What turns into a pathos formula in some end-of-time strips - the survivors' gaze at one another, their attempts at alternative forms of communication that are ultimately supposed to save lives - works here, like the entire film, with a pleasant casualness. [...] Battering ram presents such an extremely interesting microcosm in which the familiar comes along with playful ease, without ever falling into clumsy parody. With a love of detail, Kren manages to win something from almost every cliché, such as the endless news loop on the radio. What he succeeds above all because he always confronts the dramatic potential that keeps piling up with a rather dry sense of humor, which comes from the Austrian main character. "

- Sascha keilholz : Critic.de

Awards

In 2010 Battering Ram won the Vienna Film Prize at the Viennale . A year later, Theo Trebs received the New Faces Award for best young actor (also for his performance in The Big Dream ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for battering ram . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , July 2010 (PDF; test number: 123 418 K).
  2. ↑ a b c d e Filmgalerie 451: Press kit . Berlin 2010 ( online [PDF]). Press kit ( Memento of the original from December 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rammbock-film.de
  3. ↑ a b Joachim Kurz: Critique. kino-zeit.de, accessed on October 27, 2010 .
  4. ↑ a b Thorsten Dörting: The German zombie likes it romantic. Spiegel Online , September 9, 2010, accessed October 27, 2010 .
  5. ↑ Cinema release: Zombie film Battering Ram. Near-dark.de, September 9, 2010, accessed October 27, 2010 .
  6. ↑ [1]
  7. ↑ " Free TV premiere again on ZDFneo - Zombie shocker" Rammbock " ( Memento of the original from December 11, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ", December 10, 2010. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.satundkabel.de
  8. ↑ Dominik Kamalzadeh: Foam at the mouth, blood on the shirt . In: Special - The Standard . March 16, 2010 ( derstandard.at ).
  9. ↑ Sascha wedge decking: criticism on critic.de, accessed on 3 December of 2010.