UFO (2010)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title UFO
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2010
length 99 minutes
Rod
Director Burkhard Feige
script Burkhard Feige
production Christoph Holthof
Daniel Reich
music Dürbeck & Dohmen
camera Ralf Leistl
cut Dirk Grau
Burkhard Feige
occupation

UFO is a German feature film from 2010. The story, for which the author and director Burkhard Feige also wrote the screenplay, takes place against the backdrop of the Chernobyl reactor disaster on April 26, 1986. The film is told from the perspective of a twelve-year-old boy and sets grapples with the question of where normality ends and madness begins. Nuclear radiation functions here as a metaphor , since it - like a mental illness - is invisible.

UFO celebrated its premiere on January 20, 2010 in the competition of the 31st Max Ophüls Preis film festival in Saarbrücken . The film had its television premiere on November 24, 2010 on SWR . The work received the FBW title of Particularly Valuable .

content

1986. Gorbatschow makes glasnost in the Soviet Union and demonstrations against the reprocessing plant are held in Wackersdorf . The 12-year-old Bodo doesn't care. He is a space fan and thinks it's wonderful that he can play Klingon Battle with his mother Christa in the supermarket. The fact that he lives right next to a nuclear power plant in Philippsburg doesn't bother him much - in contrast to his mother, who feels threatened by the power plant. On January 28th, Bodo followed the launch of the space shuttle Challenger with enthusiasm . The media interest is enormous: for the first time a civilian flies into space. But Bodo's mother Christa suddenly behaves strangely and stares away at the sky. Shortly afterwards, the space shuttle explodes in a fireball.

Spring 1986. The family moves. Everything seems to be returning to normal. Christa is happy to finally be away from the Philippsburg nuclear power plant . But in her new home, a high-rise estate in Karlsruhe , she falls back into her behavior pattern shortly afterwards and stares at the sky, much to the displeasure of Wolfi and Dirk, two boys from the estate. Bodo also has a bad feeling. He thinks something is in the air. But nobody cares. Father Robert is busy moving in and the older brother Mark only has eyes for the pretty Tina next door.

On April 26, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded . Christa really sees the radioactive threat approaching her and continues to intensify her fears. For father Robert this is radiation hysteria. But Bodo wonders if his mother might know more than anyone else - if there is a connection between the catastrophe and Christa's behavior.

One night, Bodo's mother tries to use the vacuum cleaner against the threatening cloud. When father Robert tries to bring his wife to her senses, an argument breaks out in the course of which he beats his older son Mark. Christa escapes with Bodo - the odyssey ends in an accident. The next day the mother disappeared. Nobody really talks to Bodo or explains the situation to him. Together with his new friend Wolfi, a spoiled key child, he therefore goes on a search. On Usenet , the forerunner of the Internet, the two get caught in a vortex of half-truths and conspiracy theories: about black figures, crop circles and an obscure moth man .

When Bodo's mother suddenly turns up at home one day, another catastrophe seems inevitable. She starts with Wolfi's absurd ideas - which Bodo is no longer particularly convinced of. When Christa reveals to him one day that she is not crazy - she only knows everything, a painful process of realization begins for the boy. When he flees again to the roof of the skyscraper, it culminates in a suicide attempt by the mother. At the end of the film, Bodo is sitting with his father on the roof of the skyscraper and radioing with his mother. It's probably in psychiatry . Or maybe in heaven.

Historical context

On April 26, 1986, block four of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine exploded near the city of Pripyat . In the days that followed, it became known that a radioactive cloud threatened large parts of Europe. The reactions in the Federal Republic ranged from trivializing and perplexity to panicking hamster purchases and the fear of even going outside. Playgrounds were closed, and fruit and vegetables were destroyed in large numbers. Society was in a kind of paranoid state of emergency, as research and politics were also divided on the extent of the threat.

background

UFO is Burkhard Feige's feature film debut and was made as part of the SWR series Debut in the Third . The story has autobiographical traits, but its plot is fictitious.

For the producers Christoph Holthof and Daniel Reich with their Baden Baden- company Kurhaus Production meant UFO , the feature film debut.

The film was shot in the summer of 2009 in Karlsruhe and the surrounding area. The opening sequence takes place in Philippsburg . The production was done with a low budget and low actor fees.

occupation

For the main role of 12-year-old Bodo, a time-consuming casting was expected . A selection from hundreds of candidates was invited to castings in several major German cities, including Berlin and Munich. However, the first candidate at the first casting, Henry Stange, got the role.

Dennis Chmelensky was cast for the role of Wolfi . The up-and-coming singer had drawn attention to himself by participating in the second season of the talent show Das Supertalent . In October and November 2008 this was broadcast by the German television station RTL .

Elmar Hörig , presenter at the radio station SWF3 in the 1980s , took on the role of his radio voice in UFO . He spoke for the moderation especially for the film.

Motifs

Since the film was made on a low budget, the most authentic 1980s look was crucial when choosing the locations . In particular, the search for a suitable main motif turned out to be difficult. Production designer Christian Strang visited around 80 high-rise estates in Baden-Württemberg . He finally found what he was looking for in Durmersheim near Karlsruhe.

Filming

There were 30 days of shooting available between August 11 and September 22, 2009. Together with cameraman Ralf Leistl , a decision was made in favor of conventional, analogue Super 16 film material, in order to meet the image perception of the 1980s with its rather grainy characteristics. This was followed by a digital color grading lasting several weeks, during which the film was given a high-contrast sepia look .

Production design & costume design

The challenge for production designer Christian Strang and costume designer Bettina Marx was on the one hand to be authentic and on the other hand not to distract from the serious story with colorful 1980s show values. When it comes to costume design in particular, director Burkhard Feige often called for restraint: "If we had shown certain clothes and hairstyles as they really looked, then many would probably have said: It's totally exaggerated!"

music

The film score was composed and recorded by the Cologne composer duo Dürbeck & Dohmen . The concept was to combine classic and electronic instruments - typical of the 1980s - such as the organ and synthesizer . In addition, electrical noises run through the music in order to connect the Chernobyl catastrophe and the psychotic disturbance of the female main character Christa on an acoustic level.

The film score is complemented by a soundtrack with songs from the 1980s. Including The Alan Parsons Project (Lucifer) , Michael Sembello ( Maniac ) , Paso Doble (computer love) , Visage ( Fade to Gray ) , Kim Wilde ( Cambodia ) , Peter Schilling ( Major Tom (completely detached) ) , Nena ( only dreamed ) , Corey Hart (Sunglasses at Night) , FM ( Freckles ) , Billy Idol (Dancing with Myself) .

criticism

The film received mostly positive reviews. The FAZ wrote, “The film does not relentlessly show the mother's illness and the growing despair of the two sons and the father. And therein lies his strength, the director Feige does not roll out the subject down to the last detail. This is how the plot gains importance, also for the present day ”. The film-dienst describes the work as a “sensitive (television) drama which, despite the gravity of the action, is not lacking in humor. The mixture of family drama and coming-of-age story is staged with admirable ease. ”. And according to the German Film and Media Assessment (FBW) , Burkhard Feige succeeds in “ drawing a very moving, subtle study of the psychosis as a clinical picture as well as an authentically furnished mood of the 80s”.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Burkhard Feige about his film UFO in an SWR interview, formerly online at http://www.swr.de/kultur/film/burkhard-feige-ufo-interview/-/id=3240/nid=3240/ did = 7054260 / trhjw2 /
  2. ↑ Jakob Schlandt: Alarm in Schwabing - How a seven-year-old in Munich experienced the Chernobyl panic . In: Berliner Zeitung , April 22, 2006
  3. ↑ Martin Gropp: Spaceships in the stomach . FAZ.net, November 24, 2010
  4. ↑ film-dienst 11/2014, film on TV
  5. ↑ Press release , German Film and Media Rating (FBW)