Winter heart - death on a cold night

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Movie
Original title Winter heart - death on a cold night
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2018
length 88 minutes
Rod
Director Johannes Fabrick
script Susanne Schneider
production Kirsten Hager
music Manu short
camera Helmut Pirnat
cut Mona Bräuer
occupation

Winter Heart - Death on a Cold Night is a German TV film by Johannes Fabrick from 2018 , which was produced on behalf of ZDF . In addition to Anton Spieker , Laura de Boer and Franz Pätzold in the leading roles, Ulrike Kriener and Bernhard Schütz are cast in leading roles. The tragic death of 17-year-old Finn drastically changes the life of a family from one minute to the other.

The film premiered on November 3, 2018 at the Biberach Film Festival, and was premiered on television on December 2, 2019 on ZDF.

action

Mike Gattner, a policeman, goes to a nightclub with his 17-year-old brother Finn , where they have a stag and hen party with lots of alcohol flowing. He leaves the party prematurely with his youth crush Valerie, but gives Finn money beforehand so that he can take a taxi and drive home. He smiles as he ignores his underage brother's request to stay a little longer.

Completely drunk, Finn walks through the cold snowstorm in the middle of the night and is hit by a white vehicle. At the wheel sits Maxim Vollert, who has just been appointed as a probationary judge and who celebrated it with his parents together with his wife Sylvie. Alcohol was also drunk with food. While Sylvie is worried and wants to take Finn to the hospital, Maxim, who is worried about his career, decides to drop Finn off at a bus stop on his way home, where he can take the next bus. Outwardly, Finn shows no injuries. The next morning the young man is found at the bus stop, he seems to have frozen to death. Finn's mother collapses when she learns of her son's death.

Finn's brother Mike blames himself for leaving him alone. The fact that Finn tried again to reach him on his cell phone before his death was a big hit on Mike. Add to this the bewilderment and despair of his parents, which he finds it difficult to endure, as well as the words of his mother that he had promised to take care of Finn. The family learns from the autopsy doctor that Finn died as a result of internal bleeding and that he was not frozen to death. Mike wonders how Finn got to the bus stop, it is exactly in the opposite direction from which he should have been going. After the funeral, Mike meets Sylvie Vollert at his brother's grave, who is tormented by feelings of guilt. Her behavior seems strange to him and she drives a white car, one of which the witness Baumgart had seen on the night on the street Finn was traveling. Mike manages to get into conversation with Sylvie. He instinctively senses that she knows more about his brother than she wants to admit. In their mutual need they sleep together. And it doesn't stop at this one time. Then chance plays into Mike's hands, in a photo that is in Sylvie's apartment and shows her, she wears the chain around her neck that he found at the bus stop where Finn was dropped off.

Maxim Vollert puts his wife on badly when he is reported by the Gattners, but is determined to deny any guilt, as nothing can be proven to him. On the contrary, he threatens to file charges against the Gattners for defamation and to bring an action for an injunction. Mike's words about whether he hasn't done enough to his family already bounce off him. Sylvie admits to Mike that her husband hit Finn, but is not ready to testify against him.

After his mother collapsed during their concert, Mike grabs Maxim Vollert, beats him and takes him to a remote house, where he chains him to the heater. Then he reveals to his parents Finn's last call and the guilt he had incurred for not answering the cell phone, although he could have guessed it was Finn. There is nothing that can be done because no matter what it is, it would not bring Finn back to life. Together with Sylvie, he then drives to Maxim Vollert and frees him. When he threatens that he will report him for attempted murder, Sylvie tells her husband in a firm voice that he will not do that, because she will then testify that she had been with Mike the whole time. Mike and Sylvie part without a word. The car with the Vollerts drives away while Mike drives to the bus shelter, sits down on the bench and lets his gaze wander.

Production notes, background

Winter Heart - Death on a Cold Night was filmed from January 30th to March 5th, 2018 in Munich and the surrounding area. Hager Moss Film GmbH was responsible for the film. Ulrike Hauff was in charge of production and Sabine Wenath-Merki was in charge of production. The ZDF editorial team was Pit Rampelt.

Anton Spieker, who can be seen in the film as Mike, said about his role: “Mike is a blatant figure because he moves between grief and guilt and, in addition to his own pain, is always maneuvering what he tells whom and with which methods he can get to which information. Then there are also almost absurd feelings for the woman, whom he considers to be partly responsible for the death of his brother; loss of control is inevitable. Playing an overwhelmed character like Mike is always cool because anything can happen. "

reception

Audience rating

When it was first broadcast, the film was viewed by 5.25 million viewers, and its market share was 16.8 percent.

criticism

The critics of the TV magazine TV Spielfilm pointed with the thumbs up, gave two out of three possible points for claim and tension and one for eroticism and found that "the complex story of grief, guilt and forgiveness" would be "calm" by director Johannes Fabrick , but told relentlessly ”. The “wintry images” would reflect “the inner life of the characters”, “whose souls since the accident seem as if they were covered with hoarfrost”. The conclusion was: “Moving reflection on guilt and atonement”.

The film service read: “A (television) drama based on a sensitive visual language about guilt and despair in the face of an avoidable death that increases its intensity more and more” and praised the “outstanding actors” who “die psychologically precisely drawn characters [would bring] to life. "

Julian Miller fromquotemeter.de said, “although the script does not deviate a millimeter from the expected timetable and the predictability of the events assumes sheer penetrating proportions”, “how intensely the film engages with its characters” is pleasing, “even if he missed the ultimate consequence ”. Miller went on to write: “The subtle staging by director Johannes Fabrick and the gentle, empathetic play by Laura de Boer and Anton Spieker take a lot of the cliché from this turn of events, which it would probably carry when viewed soberly. From the very first screen minute on, de Boer reveals Gravitas to play a complex emotional and psychological guilt drama, and she furnishes her character with an astonishing complexity, although the script makes this role uncomfortable (but perhaps out of a dramaturgical necessity) very one-sided ”.

Rainer Tittelbach took on the film on his tittelbach.tv website , which he gave five out of six possible stars, and praised the film as "a guilt-and-atonement drama in the everyday guise of a classic tragedy". The film tells "of the desperate search for justice and the hope of being redeemed from the loneliness of guilt through love" ", as the author Susanne Schneider put it" in a nutshell ". “Driven by the longing for redemption”, “the two most sensitive characters of the film, with Anton Spieker and Laura de Boer well and well cast, begin a passionate affair”. According to director Johannes Fabrick, "'Despair, passion and eroticism are good fuel for desire'". Fabrick found, "as is so often the case, the right imagery for this drama: the barren nature, the frost and the winter landscape immerse the lost souls in an atmospheric ambience". It goes on to say: “Everyone feels more or less complicit in the disaster in which the fateful events interlock. The man in the civil service only has his career in view; the brother forgets his promise to his parents to look after his underage brother out of sheer sexual desire. But mother and father also feel bad: If they hadn't allowed their boy to go to the boisterous adult party, he would still be alive. The co-driver of the accident car was particularly affected by the accident. If only she would have prevailed and not given in to her dominant husband as always. [...] But the search for someone to blame, as we know it from everyday communication, just as little as the tendency to classify film characters on a sympathy scale does not stop at the enlightened viewer. Recognizing this is one of the many strengths of this exceptionally good TV drama, which could be given the genre subtitle 'a moral film narrative'. ”In Johannes Fabrick, Susanne Schneider's wise screenplay got the ideal director for this material. There is “no more productive German-speaking director”, explains Tittelbach, “whose films in recent years” have been consistently rated “as good (with 5 to 6 stars)” on his side.

The film, which received four out of five possible stars, was also praised by Kino.de : “In his films, Johannes Fabrick always goes where it hurts. [...] For the parents who melt in their suffering. Big brother who should be watching. For those who caused the accidents, who did not care about the drunk but apparently undamaged boy. A story that only knows losers and in the 'King of Drama' becomes an intense film with haunting and extraordinary images (camera: Helmut Pirnat). ”The“ one-dimensional drawing of the accident driver as an unsympathetic careerist ”was perceived as a small drawback rob the film of "dramaturgical potential".

Oliver Armknecht from film-rezensions.de was of the opinion that the film was not "actually consistent" with regard to the question of guilt, since "most of the guilt issues were addressed in just one sentence, then dropped again". Armknecht criticized the fact that 'Winterherz' made the perpetrator “a selfish, rich snob”, “an ideal enemy that leaves no room for ambivalence”. The film "is full of clichés" that would be "dutifully pulled through", "regardless of whether that happens or not". Armknecht also took offense at the “bare skin” and the sex scenes, which were “never plausible”. In contrast to the previous reviews, he was also of the opinion that the film "will never be that really moving and emotionally rousing".

This view of things was also contradicted by the evaluation of the film by Tilmann P. Gangloff for the website evangelisch.de , who stated: “Basically every film by Johannes Fabrick works like an experiment: He puts his characters in a special position and then looks quietly to how they behave. The challenges are always of an existential nature, which is why the stories leave no one indifferent. "Fabrick is a" human watcher, the tension in his films is created through identification with the characters ". The fact that main actor Anton Spieker is "a largely blank slate" makes "empathy all the easier". Even if it seems “initially irritating” “that the policeman is starting a relationship with the wife of his brother's murderer”, “the question basically does not arise thanks to Fabrick's plausible implementation”. This has "not least to do with his excellent leadership of the little-known leading actors". Ulrike Kriener and Bernhard Schütz as parents expressed their pain "in completely different and not untypical ways". As she "turns her grief outward and looks for a target for her anger, her husband grieves inward". Schütz embodies the "very economical, but still with great intensity". This applies "to the entire film"; Fabrick "only changed the low tone towards the end, when Mike let himself be carried away to an act of desperation".

Overall, Manfred Riepe, who rated the film on the media correspondence page , was more inclined to the opinion of Armknecht, who also disliked the fact that the dead man's brother and the driver's wife have sex with each other. He wrote: “In this diffuse situation, both of you go to bed with each other - as if they had not been waiting for anything else. This twist, in which the film blends death, guilt and sexuality into one another in terms of kitchen psychology, obviously also serves to show the elf-like Laura de Boer extensively with bare skin. "Despite" such colossal moments "have 'Winterheart - death on a cold night 'a "certain entertainment value". The "viewing pleasure, however, is limited by the extremely stereotypical distribution of roles". Riepe spoke of “pale television film characters who are unable to draw the viewer into the drama” and a “half-baked story” that also contains “one or the other wooden dialogue”. It is true that 'Winter Heart - Death on a Cold Night' "in the end is a formally ambitious, atmospheric drama that is not convincing due to its implausible story and its main characters, which arouse little interest".

Against this was the opinion of Oliver Junge, who rated the film for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . He wrote, "The requiem 'Winter Heart' on ZDF shows, movingly, how feelings of guilt, despair and thirst for revenge wrestle with one another after a tragic loss". “That the tragic death of young Finn (Jeremias Meyer) simply cannot be true, this helpless last attempt at denial of reality is completely taken away from the excellent actors, Ulrike Kriener and Bernhard Schütz, who play the desperate parents, as well as Anton Spieker, who Finn's big brother Mike, the police officer, gives. ”“ Strong ”is“ not only Laura de Boer's tremendously poignant acting, but also the clear, purposeful dramaturgy, which then knows how to surprise ”, who knows who“ at what time which openings are made. It has also succeeded in making the relationship between Sylvie and Mike so ambivalent that we can only guess what there is about it, what is attraction and desire, what is sadness and despair, what is suspicion and calculation ”.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ TV film Winter Heart - Death on a Cold Night Cf. filmfest-biberach.de
  2. ^ Winterheart - death on a cold night at crew united
  3. ↑ Death on a cold night: shooting for ZDF television film, see page presseportal.de.
  4. ↑ Review: The TV film of the week: "Winter heart - death on a cold night" see page vielleserin.de
  5. ↑ a b Rainer Tittelbach : TV film "Winter Heart - Death in a Cold Night". Anton Spieker, Laura de Boer, Schneider, Fabrick.
    For a moral film narrative     see page tittelbach.tv . Retrieved February 23, 2020.
  6. ↑ Winter heart - death on a cold night cf. tvspielfilm.de. Retrieved February 23, 2020.
  7. ↑ Winter Heart - Death on a Cold Night. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed February 23, 2020 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  8. ↑ Julian Miller: Winter Heart - Death on a Cold Night atquotemeter.de, December 2, 2019
    (rate meter deflection at 70 percent). Retrieved February 23, 2020.
  9. ↑ Winter Heart - Death on a Cold Night see page kino.de. Retrieved February 23, 2020.
  10. ↑ Winter heart - death on a cold night see page film-rezensions.de. Retrieved February 23, 2020.
  11. ↑ TV tip: "Winter heart - death on a cold night" (ZDF) see page evangelisch.de. Retrieved February 23, 2020.
  12. ↑ Manfred Riepe: Susanne Schneider / Johannes Fabrick: "Winter Heart - Death in a Cold Night" (ZDF)
    see page medienkorrespondenz.de. Retrieved February 23, 2020.
  13. ↑ Oliver Junge: ZDF film "Winter Heart". How do you forgive your debtors?
    In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , December 2, 2019 (including film trailer). Retrieved February 23, 2020.