GERMAN FILM FESTIVAL: When thirty-something finance manager Frederick (Fabian Hinnrichs) rescinds a loan of a bad debtor, the client blows his brains out. This leaves Frederick with blood all over his office and a bad conscience. More disturbing still, is the all-in-a-day’s work re-action of his boss, who congratulates Frederick on the way he handled a 'difficult’ situation. Outwardly, Frederick is a bland Yuppie; with his blank stare of indifference, too-short to be cool hair and neat suits he appears to effortlessly negotiate the grey and black banking world with a glib air of entitlement.
But underneath the 9-5 trappings, Frederick, a former psycho-billy punk muso, with a rude wit, is boiling to break out. He releases frustration through some petty shoplifting and he holds fast to a small dream for a possible future; a trip to Iceland that was once planned as a romantic sojourn, but which never took off. Obsessed with ex-girlfriend Nadine (Nora Von Waldstatten), he stalks her with a camera, and plots a reunion.
A chance encounter with an old band buddy, Vince (Jurgen Vogel), an ex-con, trying to go straight, gives Frederick a chance to channel his quiet rage. Using the bank's client list, Frederick and Vince start pulling break and enter jobs. For Vince, the spoils are collateral for a club he hopes to start-up; but for Frederick the crimes are like 'performance art’, a sort of physical graffiti. He’ll re-set a painting so it hangs the wrong way; smash things just because it feels good to break something expensive.
Frederick is an adult-juvenile punk, who wants the world to know he’s alive. He’s a kind of throw back to a mid-70s generation of kids he saw no future for themselves in the suburban idyll of quiet desperation or the hippie dream of a global commune. Appalled by hypocrisy and the self-obsession of middle-class operators like himself Frederick finds his actions to reform a pitiless world are gestures too easily ignored and misunderstood. It’s only when he begins to understand the true nature of his anger that Frederick comes down to earth.
Director Maximillian Erlenwein’s smart drama is a fascinating co-mingling of crime movie, black comedy and social farce. The tone starts off brittle, a little heartless (some of the morbid revenge fantasy moments reminded me a bit of Todd Solondz’s Happiness). The performances, especially the soft targets of Frederick’s bilious rage, like uptight zombie-like office workers, seemed pitched to 'type’, but, as his character deepens and gathers up more complex emotions, so does the film.
There’s no moral squint to the action; there’s a vicarious pleasure in watching Frederick and Vince set to work. Still, the movie is no 'punk’ manifesto, and no radical statement. Rather, it’s a truly tender and romantic yarn about the redemptive power of love. Frederick’s anti-social impulses propel him into situations where he has to commit to a romance or a friendship. Quite simply, he learns to have faith in people. Such a narrative scheme could play corny or convenient; but Erlenwein, who also wrote the screenplay charts Frederick’s progression with a storyline that feels casual and episodic; but all the while its hiding little grenades of plot that explode expectations and send the film spinning off into suspenseful episodes full of last minute options.
Erlenwein’s direction is precise and fluid no matter how crazy it all seems; the film has the enchanting tone of a piece that seems to be following its own restless heart.
