Tears of Kali

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Movie
Original title Tears of Kali
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2004
length 106 minutes
Age rating FSK No youth approval
Rod
Director Andreas Marshal
script Andreas Marshal
production Heiner Thimm
music John Panama
camera Heiko Merten
cut Andreas Marshal
occupation

Tears of Kali is a German horror film from 2004 ; the feature film debut of director Andreas Marschall .

action

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, various sects were founded in India as meditation and self-awareness groups. Among them is the Taylor-Eriksson group , who want to banish the dark parts of the soul from the human body with radical experiments. All members have taken a vow of silence and so there is hardly any information about the members or the practices after the group has dissolved.

Tears of Kali is made up of three independent episodic films about former members of the Taylor Eriksson group. Looking back at Poona 1983, when the group was at its heyday, serve as a framework . Little by little one learns the dark secrets of this sect. The episodes are named after motifs from Hinduism .

Shakti

The journalist Tansu Yilmaz visits Elisabeth Steinberg in a Berlin psychiatry. Here the former sect member atones for complicity in the mysterious death of her guru Sarmafan. Allegedly she instigated a male communard to commit the murder. But the journalist quickly entangles the gentle woman in contradictions and tears the veil from a monstrous truth. What begins as an interview turns into a nightmarish struggle for life and death.

Devi

Dr. Steiner is supposed to help Robin Borg. The young man from the hooligan scene tries the therapeutic approaches of Dr. To withdraw Steiner. Due to the lack of honesty and the aggressive nature of Borg, the doctor tries to lure him from his reserve and mocks him. In the end he takes the young man's opening sentence , “I want to get out of my skin!”, Literally and forces the young man under hypnosis to skin himself.

Potash

The healer Edgar, who considers himself a charlatan, treats the patient Mira during group therapy in an old villa. Since her stay in India, she seems to have been stricken with a puzzling disease. To his own surprise, Edgar is able to free Mira from her suffering. But now a dark force is sneaking through the basement of the old villa and is looking for its victims. Because Mira's "illness" is a being from an otherworldly dimension who needs a new host ...

History of origin

Andreas Marschall got the idea after attending a self-awareness course. At the private drama school “REDUTA” in Berlin, the short film “Der Kali Prozess” was made in collaboration with Heiner Thimm as part of a camera workshop and received a favorable review in the magazine “Splatting Image”. A year later, Marschall took up the idea of ​​"New Age" and self-awareness as the theme of a horror film and again shot the episode "Shakti" with an acting class. After a test screening of the short film in a cinema in Oberammergau, producer Sami Balkas (“Track”) suggested expanding the project into an episode film in the style of Mario Bava's “ The Three Faces of Fear ”. After the company "Anolis" started, the second episode "Devi" was created with significantly better mini DV (progressive) technology. For a short time the idea of ​​including the older short film “The Kali Trial” was considered, but it did not fit into the compilation in terms of content or appearance. The unfinished 71-minute version of “Tears of Kali”, consisting of “Shakti”, “Devi” and the connecting storyline, was presented to international film dealers at the Mifed film fair in Milan. The interest of the buyers was surprisingly high. In addition, several international festivals, including the head of the "Cinenygma" Luxembourg Romain Roll, already expressed their interest in the unfinished and unmixed version of the film, so that it was now possible to shoot the third episode "Kali" with a moderate budget to do adequate post-production. The film was then shown at several festivals in a 117-minute, then a 109-minute version. The German premiere took place on the occasion of a forum meeting of the Wicked Vision film magazine.

DVD

A 106-minute version was released on DVD, initially as a standard version for video libraries, and a special edition with two DVDs in digipak . The original short film "The Kali Trial", various music videos by the director and missing scenes were added as bonus material. This special edition also contained the film's soundtrack as an audio CD.

Awards

  • Special Mention ( Brussels , 2004)
  • Silver Meliés, Best European Fantasy Movie ( Luxembourg , 2004)
  • L'Anello d'Oro - Golden Ring ( Ravenna , 2004)
  • Genre Award - Best Horror Film (New York Independent Film Festival, 2005)
  • Best Art Direction - Best Editing (Baja California Filmfest 2005)

Reviews

  • “Solid thriller. Despite the small budget, an amateur production with manual skills. "
  • “Marschall creates a claustrophobic atmosphere that is second to none. The suspense is increased every second and the gloomy lighting of the cellar vault, combined with the fantastic camera width by Heiko Merten, make [...] remind us of the better Dario Argento times. "
  • "Right from the opening scenes [...] through to the concluding and best of the three tales [...] there is no let up. This is grim stuff and it is all the better for it"
  • "Even if Tears of Kali is not really boring and he can donate a few short spooky minutes in front of the TV, he is all in all so stupid that you want to take the DVD out of the player, hop around on it and finally burn it."
  • "The main drawback is the general look of the film shot on digital video."
  • "Overall it's a shame. It could have been brilliant if it had decided to actually unravel the mystery it was creating rather than thickening it. "
  • "In this writers humble opinion," Tears of Kali "is one of the best - and believe me, scariest, and I mean it horror movies in years"
  • "Perfectly arranged, opulently staged and with an excellent line-up of young talents and established stars ..."

Trivia

The film contains numerous allusions to various horror and splatter films . The self-moulting in episode 2 is a reminiscence of Hellbound - Hellraiser II . The naming of the hooligan is an allusion to the Borg from Starship Enterprise: The next century , who, like the protagonist, cannot feel any feelings and can only become dangerous in a group. Putting out an eye is reminiscent of Zombi 2 in terms of its design .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lexicon of International Films
  2. wicked-vision.com
  3. eatmybrains.com
  4. ^ Tears of Kali (Tears of Kali, 2004)
  5. senseofview.de
  6. efilmcritic.com
  7. offscreen.com
  8. Wicked-Vision.com: Film review by Daniel Pereé

Web links