Magician (film)
Magician is the first feature film by the Viennese director Sebastian Brauneis . The film was made in an Austrian - Swiss co-production by the Superfilm and A Film Company production houses .
Wizard is a fictional thriller about the disappearance of a little boy. In addition to this central event, which spans the entire film, the fates of other protagonists repeatedly come to the fore, more or less related to the boy’s disappearance. In ever tighter loops, the film tells stories of very different people who intersect again and again - sometimes gently, sometimes fiercely. They have one thing in common: loneliness.
The premiere took place on January 24, 2018 at the 39th Max Ophüls Preis film festival in Saarbrücken . In Austria, the film was shown on Diagonale in March 2018 , and the cinema release in Austria is scheduled for April 20, 2018.
action
While Manuela lets her friend Annamaria take away a record in the record shop, Ulrich and his blind companion Agathe are in the hardware store to buy an aquarium. At the same time, the school nurse Evelyn is informed about the termination by the principal. Meanwhile, Marcel, Alex and Daniel, three students from this school, are cheating in a topless bar. When they are discovered as underage guests, Marcel flees from the bouncer to the toilet and leaves a clear sexual request on the wall including his mobile number under the pseudonym "Suzy". The next morning the three meet in front of the school.
Meanwhile, Annamaria takes care of her son, who has been in a vegetative state since a car accident. After the washing, she plays a song with him on his old guitar. She is interrupted by a call. It's Jürgen, a callboy, and they meet up. When Evelyn is putting her belongings in her car on the school grounds, she sees Tommy, a little boy whose bloodied lip she has sewn before. She invents an excuse and takes it with her.
In the meantime Jürgen has arrived at Annamaria's. She desperately tries to persuade him to have a sexual encounter in the presence of her son. He vehemently refuses, but agrees to have dinner.
In the evening, Marcel receives a call from a stranger at home asking for Suzy. Marcel pretends to be Suzy's son, who is kept prisoner in the room by his mother while she looks after guests.
In the meantime Ulrich sees the little boy Tommy sobbing at a window during his evening walks with Agathe. This is still held by Evelyn, who ties the boy to her with a lie about his mother, who was injured in an accident. She takes care of him during the night, while Annamaria and Jürgen get closer. The togetherness is interrupted by Annamaria's renewed attempt to move the project to Mario's room. He refuses again and means to go. At the door of the apartment they say goodbye, and Jürgen gives Annamaria a phone number. These are Marcels that he had written down from the toilet wall in the club. Marcel then receives a call from Annamaria and resolves his story about Suzy and the imprisoned son. Instead of ending the phone call, Annamaria tells him that she and her son can be found in the city park.
Meanwhile Evelyn quarreled more and more with her kidnapped Tommy and broke up on the phone with her brother Jeff. When Ulrich tried to find the window with the crying child with Agathe the next day, Agathe was almost run over by Jeff, who had made his way to her after the phone call with his sister. To calm down, Evelyn makes an appointment with her therapist. Now Marcel also meets Annamaria and her son at the agreed place in the city park and accompanies them to their weekly therapy session. Evelyn is sitting with her therapist Ulrich, and they discuss their new relationship with "Tommy". Before the practice, Marcel and Annamaria say goodbye. Then Marcel seems to have lost interest in his phone jokes and leaves his smartphone on the roof of one of the parked cars.
Jeff wakes up in the cellar of Agathe and Ulrich in an aquarium that is put over him like a cheese dome and weighed down with a washing machine. When she leaves the practice, Evelyn discovers the smartphone on the roof of her car. It is said. She takes off indecisively. At the other end is the unknown caller who thinks she is Suzy and threatens the police. Evelyn then picks up the boy from her apartment, loads her car with hastily packed things and drives off.
Back in the basement, Agathe abuses herself in front of Jeff's eyes. She makes it look like she was abused and beaten up by him. Ulrich then notifies the police. Pretending to be Jeff, he confesses “what he did” and makes a self-disclosure.
While driving in the car, Evelyn almost collides with the police cars that are on the way to Agathe and Ulrich's apartment. Only Tommy's mindfulness in the passenger seat prevents a collision. After a short silence, Evelyn decides to release the boy. But Tommy has already got out and is on his way home.
production
The film was made in co-production between Austria and Switzerland . The film was shot exclusively in Vienna and mostly in municipal districts in the Transdanubia area . Furthermore, the night club Club Sass , the Orpheum Vienna and the accident hospital Vienna Lorenz Böhler were filming locations.
In order to do justice to the difficult issues in the area of blindness and coma care in the dramatic and cinematic work, under the direction of William Eggert, unique collaborations with trainers from the Federal Institute for Education for the Blind and nurses from the coma department of the Donaustadt nursing home took place.
music
The film “Magician” works with recurring pieces of music and quotations that enclose the higher-level, thematic links. The arches connect the similarities of the fates beyond the moments of mere touch and are a kind of immaterial cement that holds the inner turmoil and longing of the main characters together as well as possible.
The musical magician theme was written by the Austrian DJ and producer Wolfram Eckert alias Marflow.
Another central piece of music is the song "Ce petit cœur" by the French singer and songwriter Françoise Hardy .
The third defining number of the film is the Italo-Disco classic "I Like Chopin" by Gazebo .
Trivia
It is the first feature film in which the married couple Nicholas Ofczarek and Tamara Metelka play together in front of the camera.
Awards and nominations
- 2018: Thomas Pluch Screenplay Award - Special Jury Award
Reviews
Wiener Zeitung, January 26th, 2018: "Magician" is an incredibly unconventional episode film whose erratic style and ultimately all of its failed protagonists are striking. [...] In the end, Brauneis does not manage to dissolve one hundred percent, but he develops a precise image of a battered Austrian soul, which is reflected in all of his characters. But the director never crosses the border to being unbelievable. "Magician" is a fine balancing act between abyss and - abyss.
Kleine Zeitung, March 17, 2018: "Zauberer" is a virtuoso weave of four storylines into one big thread. [...] "Clemens Setz knows that you can do anything in an abstract framework without really meaning it", director Brauneis paid his first co-screenwriter respect. Magical thinking as a method of self-empowerment has its place as well as the surreal, the shimmering in seemingly sober everyday life. In his good moments, "Zauberer" recalls the subcutaneous threat in lynch films, of fragile relationship constellations that can turn into violence at any time.
Uncut Movies, March 22, 2018: “Magician” is a film that is certainly not for everyone, be it its unconventional structure, excessive portrayal of violence or not exactly lovable characters. Nonetheless, it offers an extraordinary pleasure to viewers who engage in this unusual connection.
Leokino Cinematograph, April 1, 2018: ZAUBERER is rich in eccentric characters, drastic images and absurd dialogues. The idle times of communication already point to these "perversions", which are reliably considered. [...] People mutilate themselves, assign their own guilt to others, get caught up in superstition and fear of the apocalypses. They are part of a choreography of chance built from ominous allusions, associations and mysteries.
Web links
- Wizards in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Magician at superfilm.at
Individual evidence
- ↑ 39th Max Ophüls Prize Film Festival: Further competition entries have been announced. In: max-ophuels-preis.de. www.max-ophuels-preis.de, December 1, 2017, accessed December 15, 2017 .
- ↑ Film Festival Max Ophüls Prize: Feature film competition ( Memento of the original from January 2, 2018 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 this notice. . Retrieved on January 23, 2018.
- ↑ Diagonale 2018: Magician . Retrieved March 2, 2018.
- ↑ Austrian Film Institute. Retrieved January 17, 2018 .
- ↑ Thomas Pluch Script Award 2018: Nominations / Jury / Award Ceremony . Retrieved March 2, 2018.
- ↑ Thomas Pluch Screenplay Awards 2018 ( Memento of the original from March 16, 2018 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. . Retrieved March 16, 2018.
- ↑ Matthias Greuling: The fine line between the abysses. Retrieved January 19, 2019 .
- ↑ By Martin Fichter-Wöß / APA | 11:46 am, March 17th, 2018: Diagonale 2018: "Magician" as a long "Bösterreich" episode. March 17, 2018, accessed January 19, 2019 .
- ↑ Magician (film review) | UNCUT movies. Retrieved January 19, 2019 .
