Toyland terminus
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Toyland terminus |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 2009 |
| length | 45 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Daniel Goldfinch |
| script | Daniel Goldfinch |
| production | Daniel Goldfinch |
| music | Michael Altmann |
| camera | Thomas Forster |
| cut | Daniel Goldfinch |
| occupation | |
| |
Toy Land Endstation is a fairy tale thriller for adults from Germany. The 45-minute film is Daniel Stieglitz's thesis at the Kunsthochschule Kassel .
action
The main character of the film is a hit man, called number 28, who breaks into his victims' apartments at night, silently enters their bedrooms and kills them with a few drops of high-dose poison.
Flashbacks tell that number 28 grew up in an orphanage without parental care or social support. Because of his appearance - the scar of a badly operated harelip - and his shy, fearful nature (he is still bed-wetting), he is the eternal outsider in the home, being teased, laughed at and beaten up. His only reference person is the rector of the facility, who sits in a wheelchair and is therefore just like him different . She is the only one who shows understanding and solidarity.
One evening after the rector rescued him from a fight, she asks him to do her a favor. He's supposed to kill a rat for her. He had the choice of beating her to death with a hammer or choking her under a glass. The boy, who was innocent until then, had no idea that this act would not only mean the end of his childhood, but also the beginning of a criminal career as a professional killer. He decides to choke the rat under a glass.
Many years later the boy became a man who ekes out the secluded existence of a hired man in a small, gloomy apartment. On one of his jobs, however, he is surprised by a little girl - the daughter of his potential victim. Your father hasn't come home from work yet. Overwhelmed by the situation, he asks the child, who thinks he is Santa Claus because of his beard, to go back to his room and go to sleep. Instead of going to bed, however, the girl pestered him with questions and asked him to be put to bed. The child's mother died in an accident.
When he enters the nursery and finally reads a bedtime story to the girl, he forgets more and more of his actual job and is drawn deeper and deeper into the child's world of thoughts, which is about talking toys and fantasy characters.
At their request, he replaces the fairy tale characters in the story with animals, using his own imagination and finally starting to see the story through the eyes of a child. The walls of the room suddenly disappear and he finds himself in a different, wonderful world where animals can speak, huge pink trees grow and the two of them fly through the air on the bed.
When the girl's father opens the apartment door, the killer wakes up from his dream. But the experience changed him. He hides in the apartment, watches how the father lovingly takes care of the child and finally leaves the apartment without having completed his assignment.
Although the killer has changed as a result of this event, he fails to turn his life around in a positive way. His past finally overtakes him and his clients shoot him. The film ends with number 28 lying dying on the floor and returning with final thoughts to the fantasy world he experienced with the little girl.
Production notes
In 2007 Daniel Stieglitz wrote the screenplay for a full-length feature film entitled “Irrlichter”. The story is about a terminally ill contract killer and his unusual friendship with a young junkie. The screenplay was funded by the Hessian Film Fund with 6500 euros in preparation for production, but because the follow-up date was getting closer and the money was not enough for the production of a full-length feature film, Daniel Stieglitz took a single scene from the book and rewrote it into an independent short film . That was the basis for “Toy Land Endstation”.
In addition to the director, writer and producer Daniel Stieglitz, this is also the thesis of the two Kassel fellow students Thomas Förster, who took over the camera for the film (as in all of Daniel Stieglitz's films so far) and Riet Bernard, who was responsible for the costume and set design .
Originally the film was just supposed to be called “Toy Land”. After the shooting was over, however, the director Jochen Alexander Freydank contacted Daniel Stieglitz, whose film of the same name Toy Land won the Oscar in the “best short film” category. Eventually the title was renamed “Toy Land Endstation”.
The flashbacks in the orphanage were filmed in the former barracks in Krampnitz near Potsdam, where films such as Duell - Enemy at the Gates by Jean-Jacques Annaud , parts of Inglourious Basterds by Quentin Tarantino , Mein Führer - The really truest truth about Adolf Hitler and Resident Evil was filmed.
The scenes in the killer's apartment and the little girl's apartment were all shot in a house in Berlin-Neukölln. The film team from Kassel lived in the same house during the shooting, without hot water or heating in winter 2007/2008. The dream sequences were filmed in the Löwenburg (Kassel) , which was closed and lavishly decorated for the day.
A 17-minute short version was cut for the German Federal Film Board, which is now also being shown at national and international festivals.
Reviews
“A student's energetic achievement, carried by enthusiasm, heart and soul and irrepressible joy in“ big ”cinema. An aging hit man is disturbed at work in the middle of the night: a little girl whose father he is supposed to kill thinks she is Santa Claus, wants to be put to bed and a story told. The child draws him ever more intensely into his world of innocence and magical fantasy and confronts the murderer with his own suffered and repressed childhood. Exceptional in the acting, with attention to detail in the equipment and courageously strolling through the various levels of action, this "finger exercise" is characterized by a feel for cinematic craft and for atmospheric storytelling. "(Jury statement Hessian Film Prize).
“A magical story that is particularly warm thanks to the little girl's excellent play, but also because of the old man's ability to change. The loving and detailed equipment, which culminates in the representation of the fantasy land with a particularly beautiful color scheme, deserves praise. Even if the finishing touches are still missing, the dramaturgy can have a good arc of suspense with surprising twists. To this one can count especially the excellent ending - the colorful bird in the hand of the dying killer. "(Explanation Filmbewertungsstelle Wiesbaden )
Festivals and Awards
- Hessian Film and Cinema Award 2009 in the category of best university film
- Festival Max Ophüls Preis - nomination for the best medium-length film
- Jury Prize of the Hay Duration Film Days
- Predicate Valuable Filmbewertungsstelle Wiesbaden
- Audience award at the OpenEyes Short Film Festival Marburg in the category of best university film
Web links
- Toy land terminus in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Toy land terminus at filmportal.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hessischer Filmpreis ( Memento of the original from August 2, 2009 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.
