Solo for clarinet

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title Solo for clarinet
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1998
length 95 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Nico Hofmann
script Susanne Schneider
production Regina Ziegler ,
Birgit Brandes
music Nicholas Glowna
camera Hans-Günther Bücking
cut Inge Behrens
occupation

Solo for clarinet is a psychological thriller by director Nico Hofmann from 1998 , in which Corinna Harfouch and Götz George play the leading roles. The film was produced by Pro 7 and Regina Ziegler . Following the RTL 2 psychological thriller Der Sandmann (1995), this is the fourth collaboration between Nico Hofmann and Götz George. The film is based on a novel by the psychoanalyst Elsa Lewin , the plot of which was moved from New York to a rainy Berlin.

action

In 1997, Detective Superintendent Bernhard "Bernie" Kominka did more than just burn out his duties in Berlin after investigating 651 murder cases and clearing up 458 of them in 21 years . He and his wife avoid each other, his mentally retarded son is aggressive - he hates his father. Seen in this way, the work with colleague Freddie offers the experienced police officer (the last) hold.

A male corpse in an ugly condition is found in a dreary skyscraper. While making love with a clarinet, the man's skull was smashed in and parts of his genital organ were bitten off. While the forensic investigation is still running, a yellow umbrella disappears from the scene and Kominka sees a woman in a red coat in the corner of her eye. He sees the umbrella again and manages to write down a license plate number. His marriage finally breaks up and Bernie is thrown out of their apartment. His narrow-minded brother-in-law, who is also his superior, sends him on compulsory leave after an exchange of words and physical abuse. Kominka feels after the umbrella and the potential witness on her own. He lets out his anger on a prostitute whom he beats for hospital. Meanwhile, an ex-wife of the dead man is moving into the sights of the investigators, and it seems as if he was in contact with pedophiles and referred his own son to these circles. In order to pursue his own trail and to get in touch with the attractive Anna Weller - who always wears a red coat and has a yellow umbrella - Kominka attends a disillusioning singles party in the anonymity of the big city. The fragile, divorced Anna is a museum guide by profession . Kominka has to hide the fact that he earns his money as a police officer. Despite all the emotional baggage, they fall stormily in love.

Kominka forgets his investigation through the Amour fou . Suspicion, curiosity and desire go hand in hand. Both comfort each other temporarily, and Kominka is increasingly on the wrong track. However, he can observe Anna several times as she calls her own answering machine at home from a phone booth and speaks of her experiences there like a confession. After one of the singles parties, she went with a man who, however, didn't want to give her any tenderness, just wanted her body. Anna finds his not yet surrendered ID card and his service pistol in the jacket of the meanwhile suspended Kominka . Anna confesses the original murder to Kominka, and he suggests that they cover up the matter and start a new life together. When Kominka is sleeping with Anna, she shoots herself in the next room with the service pistol. Freddie, who has meanwhile shadowed his former partner, storms into the apartment, but Anna is already dead. In order to hide the matter from his own investigators and to protect Kominka, Freddie takes the service pistol, demolishes some objects in Anna's apartment and scattered her jewelry on the floor. The next day Kominka reads in the newspaper that the police had found Anna and is now wondering whether it was the murder of a burglar or Anna's suicide .

background

In the online offer of the film magazine Cinema , Heiko Rosner described that Pro 7 was originally thinking of a production for television broadcasting , and had an age rating of 12 in mind, which would have distorted the book beyond recognition. Producer Regina Ziegler joined them later and processed the " amphibious " material for the screen with Pro 7.

The film was premiered in the Federal Republic of Germany on October 15, 1998, and was shown on video on April 6, 1999.

Reviews

  • “Not a genre film in the true sense of the word that uses the guidelines of the crime film to convey its story, but whose actual theme is the existential drama of two people trying to escape their inner isolation . A little too forced in terms of acting, the cleverly thought-out film offers entertainment at a remarkable level. "( Lexicon of international film )
  • “The camera, direction and actors are [...] well above average. [...] The Berlin of this film is also highly artificial, namely, far beyond everyday experience, gloomy, bleak and rainy [...] the question arises why it didn't turn out to be a great film after all. The answer is obvious and is the usual one for German cinema : the script . Here again someone simply wanted too much, all at once. [...] Next to Dominik Graf, Nico Hofmann is certainly the best German director in terms of craftsmanship ”( Ekkehard Knörer : Jump Cut )
  • “Very early on, however, a sonorous voice indicates that the investigator is more interested than the case. [...] Again and again the film has to rely on crime standard situations. "( Merten Worthmann : Berliner Zeitung )
  • “The poetics promised in the title do not materialize , the dark fates of dark, perverse figures with no perspective in the anonymous, gray, obnoxious urban milieu [sic] take their place. [...] A film that is strained by short, signal-laden dialogues, which symbolizes the infinite fatigue of the policeman Komika [sic], and which only convinces in the boredom it creates. "( Frame 25 )
  • "An insidious sham [...] from thriller to problem film [...] No, you don't really want to have anything to do with such characters" ( Rico Pfirstinger : Focus Online )
  • “The people are cold […] What [Hofmann] does not succeed in is to give the pictures under their surface the professionally stylized, ' American ' look content, depth and expressiveness. [...] What a figure feels, what moves it, what it does and why: it must always stand up and explain this explicitly. [...] As usual [..] [Götz George] persistently refuses to disappear behind his character [... Corinna Harfouch gives] Anna Weller - despite the contrived dialogues, the book's misguided thriller airs - in a brilliant tour de force life so completely convincing that the film is given a few moments of truthfulness after all. "( Thomas Willmann : Artechock )

Similarities to Hollywood thrillers such as Basic Instinct (USA 1992, D: Paul Verhoeven ), Sea of ​​Love (USA 1989, D: Harold Becker ) or even Sieben (USA 1995, D: David Fincher ) have been seen on various occasions . Ekkehard Knörer speaks of a Blade Runner weather (USA 1982, D: Ridley Scott ).

The tabloid Bild had the headline “Sex shock!” At the time, and the TV presenter Harald Schmidt then recreated the scenes with Mattel dolls in his entertainment program The Harald Schmidt Show , which director Hofmann found “terrible”.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Oliver Jahraus, Stefan Neuhaus: The erotic film: On the media coding of aesthetics, sexuality and violence . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2003, ISBN 3-8260-2582-2 , p. 155 ( GoogleBooks ).
  2. ↑ IMDb , "Company credits", see web links.
  3. ↑ Heiko Rosner: Solo for clarinet. In: Cinema . Retrieved January 19, 2009 .
  4. ↑ a b Solo for clarinet. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed December 29, 2016 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  5. ↑ a b Ekkehard Knörer : Nico Hofmann: Solo for clarinet (D 1998). In: Jump Cut . Retrieved January 19, 2009 .
  6. ^ Merten Worthmann: Shyness in front of the fire . In: Berliner Zeitung , October 15, 1998
  7. ↑ kom: Solo for clarinet. In: Frame 25. Retrieved January 19, 2009 .
  8. ↑ Rico Pfirstinger: PSYCHO THRILLER: detective depression. In: Focus Online . Retrieved January 19, 2009 .
  9. ↑ Thomas Willmann: Solo for clarinet. In: Artechock. Retrieved January 19, 2009 .
  10. ↑ Solo for clarinet. In: Prism . Retrieved January 19, 2009 .
  11. ↑ a b reocities.com ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 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.reocities.com
  12. ^ Sascha Westphal: Solo for clarinet. In: Amazon . Retrieved January 19, 2009 (from Amazon.de).
  13. ↑ "At the end of August 1998 this small, quiet film received the attention of the big tabloid press [...] Great excitement about a rock-solid and serious film" (Hans Messias, film-dienst ); "Trash journalism" (Rudi John, in: Kurier reocities.com ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove it Note. ) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.reocities.com

Interview with Nico Hofmann

  1. ↑ cf. Eckard Fuhr, Hanns-Georg Rodek: Why cinema and television belong together today. In: Berliner Morgenpost . February 6, 2009, accessed February 10, 2009 .
  2. ↑ cf. Dotzauer: “Regina Ziegler, the producer, always wanted 'Basic Instinct'. I said: This is more like ' Leaving Las Vegas ' or Louis Malles ' doom '. We wanted to break a male figure: where does sexuality become an outlet? ”(Nico Hofmann).
  3. ^ Gregor Dotzauer : Interview: Nico Hofmann. (No longer available online.) In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . October 15, 1998, formerly in the original ; Retrieved January 19, 2009 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / sz-shop.sueddeutsche.de