In the sparingly filmed but very stimulating documentary series, thirty men comment on topics such as masculinity, sex, fathers, love, feminism and football.
The concept and its implementation are refreshingly simple: two women interviewed thirty men, but individually. Apart from brief inquiries, no discussions take place. The seven monothematic films, each around 15 minutes long, are rather verbal collages, because Felicitas Sonvilla and Nina Wesemann put the answers together into long monologues. In terms of visual language, this is extremely sparing: the men sit in a room decorated with silver curtains like on a stage and express themselves on the topics of masculinity, sex, fathers, love, feminism and the body. Because the ZDF is putting the clips in the media library parallel to the European Championship, it is also about football, but this episode is only five minutes short and looks like an appendix. The most prominent participant besides the rapper Kelvyn Colt is the former Juso chairman Kevin Kühnert, but the two directors apparently did not ask him about this topic; you can have a wonderful chat about football with the avowed fan of Arminia Bielefeld.
The films do not reveal anything about the background or the conditions in which they were made. Most men are likely to be around the age of Sonvilla and Wesemann, roughly thirty. The selection is diverse in terms of skin color and sexual orientation, but old and young are not among them. Every now and then a casually interspersed remark about the profession is made, but otherwise there is no information about the person; the same applies to the selection criteria. The directors, who were also responsible for camera, editing and sound, concentrate fully on their guests. Since they used two cameras, there is a change of perspective in between, and in the middle of it there is music for a change, to which the guests move, but otherwise “Boys” offers nothing but talking men; After all, the two women also briefly come into the picture to preview the next episode.
“Boys” on ZDF: The short films develop their own charm
As a ninety-minute film, this concept would be tiring in the long run, but the films develop their own charm because the participants speak very openly about their feelings and experiences. The added value of the series lies in the suggestions it conveys; after all, the men represent a generation at a crossroads: the traditional role model is considered antiquated and for many may already have been overcome, but a new one has not yet been defined. This limbo is particularly evident in the fathers sequence, when the interlocutors emphasize that they want to be a different father to their children.
“Boys” (ZDF): Sometimes the ice is very thin
For female viewers, on the other hand, it is guaranteed to be interesting to get insights into areas that men are reluctant to talk about, but this is no less true for viewers because some of the interviewees admit that they could not talk to anyone about certain topics; also or possibly not with her friends. Probably some of them would have answered differently if the questions had not been asked by women but by men: on the one hand, because, for example, the factor “social desirability” might have played a smaller role, on the other hand, because both bias and impartiality with certain aspects (unpleasant experiences during sex, influence of pornography) would have been different.
To the broadcast
Documentary “Boys”, from June 11th, 2021 in the ZDF media library
How thin the ice can be is shown not least by the way the women laugh when they ask questions. The presumed uncertainty is easy to understand, on both sides: It takes a lot to ask total strangers to deal with the sometimes very intimate topics, and that doesn’t really apply to sexual details; Above all, it is the emotional level that sometimes demands an emotional striptease from the guests. In turn, their willingness to get involved in the experiment is all the more respectable.
Speaking of which: “Boys” is a production by Quantum, the format laboratory within the ZDF editorial team, Das kleine Fernsehspiel. The multiple award-winning Quantum programs include “Ion Tichy – Raumpilot”, “Götter wie wir” and the self-deprecating sitcom “Lerchenberg”. A follow-up project is of course quite imposing; According to ZDF, there are no corresponding plans yet. Sonvilla and Wesemann, who met while studying at the Munich film academy and have been working together for ten years, would certainly not mind taking on “girls” as well. (Tilmann P. Gangloff)
