The directorial debut with the young stars Matti Schmidt-Schaller and Milena Tscharntke on ARD begins furiously and then turns into a decelerated dropout drama.
“Everything is there for everyone”, “Do good, and good things will happen to you”, plus idyllic pictures of a young couple who, like Adam and Eve, seem to live in harmony with nature: The start of “Raus” is on ARD to the heart. But then there is an abrupt contrast that could hardly be greater: environmental pollution, chicks in the shredder, a tank firing. “The world is screwed because the wrong people are on the trigger,” says Glocke (Matti Schmidt-Schaller), and he wants to do something about it.
A sequence of images shows what he has not done so far: he has not hired himself as a porn actor to save the rainforest with his fee, he has not married a refugee woman so that she can stay in Germany, and he is not a militant either Eco activist. He apparently told Lena (Tijan Marei) all of this so that he could sleep on the couch with her. Because he would rather spend the nights in her bed, he has embarked on a daring action that promptly goes wrong.
“Raus” (ARD): Glockes Dixi-Klo-Stunt becomes an internet hit
A full feature film could easily be filled with this plot, but in fact it is just the furious prologue of the first directorial work by Philipp Hirsch, who wrote the screenplay together with Thomas Böltken. After a chase staged with an unleashed camera (Ralf Noack), the prelude finally leads to a flaming anti-capitalist speech by Glockes after he has cheated two security guards and their watchdog. The fact that the corresponding video is going through the roof is more likely to do with the inglorious exit, because Glocke is on a Dixi toilet during his speech, and when the fragile roof under him gives way, he is literally in shit.
Of course, in view of the cascades of images, the question arises of how Hirsch wants to pull through this enormous wealth of action for a hundred minutes, but he had no intention of doing so, because after a good ten minutes the film radically changes its sign. Only now does the real story begin: Glocke wants a new start.
He comes across the site of a man named Friedrich, who is looking for followers, not virtually, but “in real”: people who can imagine living with him in nature; they should wear red hats as a distinguishing feature. At the meeting point mentioned there are only five young people interested, but at least. This quintet is now on a kind of scavenger hunt through the wilderness in search of Friedrich’s hut. After initial mutual skepticism, the group turns into a conspiratorial bunch. That’s all over when Glocke finds out by chance that they have been led around by the nose.
“Raus” (ARD): A strange group is looking for happiness in the forest
Of course there is almost inevitably a drop in voltage as the five wander through the forest; Events such as the conflict with the hostile landlord (Jacques Breuer) of a tourist restaurant cannot change that. As in most films of this kind, the members of the group also wear a label: Steffi (Matilda Merkel) apparently has a right-wing radical past, Elias (Tom Gronau) is a nerd and perfectly prepared for the hike, Paule (Enno Trebs) gives the tough one Guy and has a bottle of vodka with him.
To the movie
“Raus”, June 30, ARD, 1.55, or in the ARD media library.
And then there is the pretty Judith (Milena Tscharntke), with whom Glocke falls in love on the spot. She makes him fidget a bit, but basically she also likes him, which adds a romance to adventure in nature. Now the circle closes at the beginning, because the pictures of Adam and Eve show Glocke and Judith. Young happiness, of all things, ultimately leads to the illusion bursting like a soap bubble; the vengeance of the group is one of shocking cruelty. She is also faced with the question of whether a new beginning can be built on a lie.
“Raus” (ARD): Very good ensemble
Without exception, the young ensemble does its job very well, even if Milena Tscharntke, already an important member of the funk series “Druck” (2018/19) and the title actress in the rape drama “Alles Isy” (2018), is excellent, and despite him Matti Schmidt-Schaller, who are already enormously film-savvy, stand out at a young age. While the first act is particularly impressive because of its frenzy of images, cameraman Ralf Noack provides some exceptionally beautiful nature shots in the rest of the film, which emphasize the carefree of the clique when bathing in the lake in the morning or during an exuberant mud fight.
In the beginning, Hirsch made a funny virtue out of the need of the limited budget: he illustrated Glocke’s unprecedented activities as a do-gooder with archive photos in which he mounted Schmidt-Schaller’s face. There are rows of original ideas of this kind, especially in the first third. For example, Lena has calculated how much sperm was needed to finance a pimp’s limber body; You have to come up with an idea like this first. (Tilmann P. Gangloff)
