Same Same But Different (film)

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Movie
Original title Same Same But Different
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2009
length 106 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Detlev Buck
script Ruth Toma ,
Michael Ostrowski ,
Detlev Buck
production Claus buoy
music Konstantin Gropper
camera Jana Marsik
cut Dirk Gray
occupation

Same Same But Different is a German drama directed by Detlev Buck from 2009. The script follows Benjamin Prüfer's memories, published in 2006 in a magazine and in 2007 as a novel . David Kross plays a young German who in Cambodia in an HIV -infiziertes Bargirl love.

action

The first pictures show, partly in slow motion , a bar girl (Sreykeo) on the way to work. Immediately afterwards, a fade-forward of the internet phone call with Ben, in which Sreykeo reports her positive HIV status and which she ends with the words “see you next life” (until the next life). In a voice-over , Ben says that he wasn't thinking of fate, but of fun when he went on vacation to Cambodia after graduating from high school. Now the story begins .

Ben, a German high school graduate, is backpacking Cambodia with his friend Ed . Ed calls this "war tourism with a claim": anti- tank rifle shooting, cocaine and sex. In a nightclub in Phnom Penh , Ben meets the young local Sreykeo - the name means "woman made of glass". The next morning, Sreykeo talks about money, and Ben realizes that she works as a prostitute. However, Sreykeo's determination keeps the two in touch. Instead of flying back to Germany with Ed , Ben stays in Phnom Penh for six more weeks, lives with Sreykeo, their gambling-addicted mother and younger siblings in a shabby apartment block, takes her to the doctor because of her chronic cough (the first doctor's visit of her life) and buys her a ring.

In Hamburg , Ben starts a three-month internship in the newspaper office where his brother Henry works. Henry says of Sreykeo: "She can't afford love." Nevertheless, Ben stays in contact with Sreykeo and sends her money for another doctor's visit. In the editorial office he receives her Internet call stating that she is infected with HIV. He can't find words.

Ben turns out to be HIV negative. Henry gets him half a permanent position as an editor, and Ben visits Cambodia again. Together with Sreykeo he travels to Bangkok and enables her to have a viral load test . In Phnom Penh he tries to organize combination therapy for Sreykeo, which is very difficult. The encounter with an elephant in the middle of the city encourages him, and he gets there in an unconventional way. Ben and Sreykeo go to the Cambodian countryside to visit Sreykeo's extended family. Sreykeo's father's request to finance a house construction stunned Ben. To Sreykeo's question “Will you marry me?” (Will you marry me?) He replies: “No, I can't; I'm too young. "(No, I can't; I'm too young.)

At Christmas Ben will be back in Hamburg. Ed, with one friend following the other, lists the pros and the predominant cons of Sreykeo quite unsentimentally. Ben's father, on the other hand, tells him how he got to know Ben's mother and introduces himself to Sreykeo over the phone with the words "papa is speaking". Ben himself is insecure - he could not reach Sreykeo several times. She tells him she worked as a bar girl again and he ends the relationship: "I can't go on with this." (I can't go on like this.) Henry comments: "Breakup - that happens."

The girlfriend of married Henry, however, emphasizes that Ben Sreykeo has a responsibility to. Ben flies to Kuala Lumpur to firstly write a report about a newly opened hotel, secondly to write down his own story and thirdly to meet Sreykeo. In a showdown , Sreykeo, who, contrary to the agreement, comes directly to the luxury hotel, is expelled from the house as an HIV-positive prostitute. Ben stands by her by claiming to be her fiancé . Sreykeo later asks him what it is: a fiancé.

In Hamburg, Henry is angry because the hotel complained about Ben. Ben replies ". Never mind, I just work in Cambodia" The last setting of the film, at the beginning of the credits , Sreykeo and Ben shows in a Buddhist wedding ceremony: A monk showered the two with water.

background

The title Same Same But Different is a Thai-English idiom that means “same but different”. Same Same But Different is Detlev Buck's first film to be shot outside of Germany. Benjamin Prüfer, who traveled with his wife Sreykeo and two children from Phnom Penh to the German premiere in Hamburg, said: “I don't see my life rushing past me”; the film is the work of Buck, less the film adaptation of his life story.

The film premiered on August 13, 2009 at the 62nd Locarno International Film Festival . The cinema release in Germany was on January 21, 2010. Same Same But Different was only moderately successful with around 184,000 cinema-goers in Germany.

criticism

The press reacted rather cautiously. In the features section of the Berliner Zeitung it was said: “Unfortunately, 'Same Same But Different' cannot make the love story plausible beyond the cultural differences. Maybe that's too much to ask; maybe one just doesn't like to believe in Ben's naivete. Perhaps it is precisely in this unexplained that the force of strangeness is preserved. ”Positive reviews emphasized the laconicity that in places characterizes the film. Der Spiegel wrote : "Buck claims that he wanted to report on 'love in global times', but the power of his film comes primarily from the fact that it tells extremely sparingly and explains almost nothing."

Several articles specifically mentioned the soundtrack - for example the Rammstein music that plays in the discotheque in the Cambodian capital and the instrumental version of a Schubert song while the camera rests on a slum area .

Awards

In August 2009 Same Same But Different received the Variety Piazza Grande Award at the Locarno International Film Festival. Critics of the American magazine Variety (an industry journal for the entertainment industry) award this prize to films that convince them both through their artistic qualities and through their international exploitation opportunities.

In January 2010 Jana Marsik received the Bavarian Film Prize in the category of image design for the films Lippels Traum and Same Same But Different .

The German Film and Media Assessment FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the rating particularly valuable.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for Same Same But Different . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , January 2010 (PDF; test number: 121 209 K).
  2. ↑ Benjamin Prüfer: Until death takes it from me. Article on www.neon.de from February 1, 2006, accessed on August 31, 2009.
  3. ↑ Benjamin Prüfer: Wherever you go. The story of an almost impossible love. Scherz Verlag, Frankfurt 2007, ISBN 978-3-502-15088-6 .
  4. ^ Nana AT Rebhan: Same Same But Different ( Memento from January 21, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). Article on www.arte.tv from August 18, 2009.
  5. ↑ Buck's new film premieres . Article on www.n-tv.de from January 20, 2010, accessed on February 20, 2010.
  6. ↑ Same Same But Different in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  7. ^ Same Same But Different at Blickpunkt: Film , accessed January 9, 2010.
  8. ↑ Anke Westphal: Money and Love . Film review in the Berliner Zeitung on January 21, 2010, accessed on www.berliner-zeitung.de on February 20, 2010.
  9. ↑ Wolfgang Höbel: Her songs plead hotly . Film review in Spiegel from January 18, 2010, accessed on www.spiegel.de on February 20, 2010.
  10. ↑ "Same Same But Different" awarded in Locarno . Report on www.ndr.de from August 17, 2009, accessed on September 28, 2011.