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Bübchen (Roland Klick, 1968)
Nov
1
autumn
Lobby card. Achim (Alexander Kekulé) at a dreary, autumn-y scrapyard surrounded by several serious looking men in trenchcoats. Bübchen is an endearing term for a little boy (via (spoilers)). DP: Robert van Ackeren.
A movie that feels like autumn*
A family of four share the same house and live their own lives. When the parents attend a company party, the neighbour's teenage daughter reluctantly babysits the children then promptly runs off with her secret boyfriend. Left to his own devices, the bored 10-year old Achim plays a game with his little sister
“Junge, du bist ja ganz woanders!”
I Initially nomintad the RAF critique Deutschland im Herbst (1978) for today's challenge, when I realised that Bübchen too is about Germany's youth's antics and the society that planted its seeds. Here again, a repressed community dutifully finds a way to bury the terror into the fabric of mundanity. You'll find it again in Michael Haneke's Das weiße Band (2009), now foretelling the German youth that came to embrace Nazism.
Eternal return, ad nauseam.
* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for November is, again, not date-based, but follows a sloppy schmaltzy all-American Thanksgiving-y narrative. Trying to make it work my way.
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Supermarkt [Die Stadt, Jane Love / Supermarket] (Roland Klick, 1974)
Mar
30
Willi Hansen (Charly Wierzejewski) in a phone booth. Filmed from the outside in, his face is partially obscured by neon lights. DP: Jost Vacano.
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Weihnacht (Roland Klick, 1963)
Nov
24
Black Friday
The miracle of Christmas, as seen in a fancy shop window. A dress shirt is on display among Sputnik-style decorations and an entranced toddler is reflected in a gilded mirror. From across the street, “Woolworth's” in neon text bounces off the window pane. DPs: Jochen Cerhak & Roland Klick.
A little boy takes in the magic of pre-Christmas, while the adults rush and worry about all that must to be bought.
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Supermarkt [Die Stadt, Jane Love / Supermarket] (Roland Klick, 1974)
Apr
16
National Cash Day
A dirty, cut hand attempts to steal a few coins from a dish at a public toilet. DP: Jost Vacano.
Good-for-nothing Willi (Charly Wierzejewski) is in trouble. After yet another run-in with the law, and yet again meeting the wrong people at the wrong time, he falls in love with a destitute street worker (Eva Mattes). Now he really needs #money so he can support himself, her, and her kid. He tries his hand at renting himself out to a rich homosexual (homosexuality was illegal in 1970s W Germany), then moves forward to robbing the money transporter of a local supermarket with his pimp buddy. But as usual, Willi is in trouble.
Shot on location in #Hamburg's red-light district St. Pauli, Supermarkt is gritty, unpleasant and has an authenticity rarely seen in other films of this genre.