Scenes from a marriage, scenes from life: director Dietrich Brüggemann’s darkly humorous comedy is as unusual as it is refreshing, as revealing as it is satirical.
Berlin – In spring he was one of the co-initiators of the controversial campaign #allesdichtmachen: the director, musician and screenwriter Dietrich Brüggemann.
In a series of short videos, well-known filmmakers such as Jan Josef Liefers commented on the measures to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, sometimes in a supposedly satirical, sometimes supposedly ironic way. Brüggemann was not the only one who was heavily criticized for participating in the campaign.
In the whirlpool of life
In the new feature film by the native of Munich, there is Corona, the pandemic does not mention a word. But big issues are at stake in this bizarre, this rather insane comedy about lovers in the vortex of life. Anna Brüggemann and Alexander Khuon can be seen in the leading roles. Furthermore: Isolde Barth, Hanns Zischler, Petra Schmidt-Schaller and Mark Waschke.
After works like “3 Zimmer / Küche / Bad” and “Kreuzweg”, “NÖ” is the fifth film that the siblings Anna and Dietrich Brüggemann developed together. While he, Dietrich, is behind the camera, she, Anna, can also be seen in front of it. It’s about the needs, worries, desires and fears of a couple, both in their early or mid-30s: Dina (A. Brüggemann) and Michael (Khuon).
“Sometimes I think we should part ways,” he says right at the beginning. But this calculation, he made it without his resolute and fragile partner. What follows is a seven-year round of irritations, challenges, struggles and attempts to somehow get along as a couple, distributed over a few scenes, with few cuts. It’s about family and, last but not least, one of the greatest challenges for many couples: the first child together.
Brutally honest
Brüggemann repeatedly tears holes in the reality that surrounds us in “Lower Austria”: there is the eerie monster face that stares at the prospective father during the first baby ultrasound. There is the operation, which takes a very bizarre course, there are all the scenes in which the conscience, the superego, the fear of the protagonists suddenly seem to speak directly to the characters in a frightening way.
What is it that aspiring parents are afraid of? What do we fear as a society in these crazy, confusing times? Brüggemann not only puts his finger on the wounds, sometimes he actually digs into them. Sometimes that’s crazy funny, sometimes just shocking. The brutal, sober, cynical manner with which the famous Mark Waschke not only reveals the baby’s sex to tense parents (against their will), but also judges those who do not want a prenatal test for trisomies with contempt.
“NÖ” is a film full of remarkable scenes that creep under your skin, that are funny and sometimes really painful, that hit the bull’s eye again and again. This is also the case with the wonderful scene in which director Brüggemann uses the simplest means to bring the tragedy of being a parent to a single point: he needs nothing more than his two main characters, a perfectly normal kitchen, two wine glasses, a beer bottle and, as the most important utensil : a baby monitor. Sometimes this film, which presents itself as an almost indeterminable mixture of satire, dystopia, social criticism and parody, feels like a root canal treatment.
Rejection of the mainstream
One looks in vain for direct comments on the corona policy (filming should have started as early as 2018). Brüggemann, however, cultivates a tone that sets itself apart from the rest of the German cinema scene, which always strives to be different. The very first dialogue underlines this: “We don’t care about the same things, that’s the important thing,” it says there. Brüggemann and his wonderful sister Anna, who is again acting great, also seem to care a lot about what has become so established in the average local cinema.
There is something very refreshing about the approach of the two siblings – even if it doesn’t fully work in every moment of this film. After all, it is not least the film title itself that seems like a defiant statement: Participating in the often stereotyped, pleasing German mainstream cinema? Dietrich Brüggemann has a clear answer to this: “Lower Austria”.
Nope, Germany 2021, 119 min., FSK from 12, by Dietrich Brüggemann, with Anna Brüggemann, Alexander Khuon, Isolde Barth, dpa
