Two men are on their way to the opening of a wine store. One is unhappily married to the owner, the other only wants to get drunk. In the meantime, a handicapped comedian with an accordion tries to cheer up a reception somewhere. That isn’t an easy task either. The accordionist leaves. When he tries to chat up a jogging woman, his car breaks down on the verge. The other two men pick him up in the dark. They start talking and are only just able to avoid running over the jogging beauty. The car runs down a wooded hill and gets stuck. The locks no longer work, the doors and windows won’t open. The three men are rats in a trap. In the comedy that then develops, the three men veer between mutual irritation, comradeship and dependence. Unwelcome intimacies are exchanged, secrets are given away. Comic dialogues follow each other around in an indefinable period of time in which they are manipulated in an incomprehensible way by someone unknown. Their vicissitudes are not wholly dependent on fate: a little boy orchestrates the steps in their story through a game on his computer. This modern and light-hearted farce is built on three very different (and convincingly acted) characters who are at the mercy of each other in a claustrophobic space and have to keep their spirits up. (SdH)
Film details
Country of production
Austria
Year
2007
Festival edition
IFFR 2007
Length
88'
Medium/Format
35mm
Language
German
Premiere status
World premiere
Director
Antonin Svoboda
Producer
Martin Gschlacht
Principal cast
Christoph Grissemann, Dirk Stermann
Editing
Oliver Neumann
Screenplay
Christoph Grissemann, Antonin Svoboda, Dirk Stermann, Heinz Strunk