Lena Urzendowsky is the star of the Amazon series “We children from Bahnhof Zoo”. Three years ago she shot the coming-of-age story “Kokon”, which is also set in a difficult Berlin milieu.
Berlin – “I’m already in love – with Romy. Do you think I’m a lesbian now? ”Asks 14-year-old Nora when a boy kisses her at a party.
The coming-of-age story “Kokon” by Berlin filmmaker Leonie Krippendorff (“Looping”), who is responsible for the script and direction, is all about such questions. About sexual awakening and sexual orientation, finding the self and peer pressure, forms of behavior between young women and men. The latter often come off as macho and self-centered. The emphatically atmospheric event was implemented in the shimmering hot summer of 2018 in the multicultural milieu around the Kottbusser Tor in the capital’s Kreuzberg neighborhood.
ZDF will show the film in the series “Shooting Stars – Young Cinema in the Second” on Tuesday at a late hour – at 11 pm. Everything revolves around the development of the sensitive Nora (Lena Urzendowsky, “Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo”), who grows up with her sister Jule (Lena Klenke, “Loving Her”) as the daughter of a single mother who loves to drink. But while Jule and her best friend Aylin (Elina Vildanova) are all about appearance and self-portrayal on social media, Nora seems lonely and insecure. Until she falls under the spell of the wild Romy (Jella Haase, “Fack ju Göhte”), with whom she experiences her first kisses, nudity and growing self-confidence. And in the end – unintentionally – she lets her go her own way.
As a symbol of the change of the heroine from mental pupation to a liberated zest for life, the film repeatedly fades in a caterpillar crawling with difficulty in the mason jar, which finally flaps its wings as a large colorful butterfly on Nora’s arm. A very clear symbol – just as Krippendorff’s feminist-tinged story does not suffer from a lack of overly clear, even pedagogical references. For example, it is mostly female solidarity that helps the girls. While male beings either throw scornful sayings about themselves as testosterone-charged adolescents or later as fathers run away from family problems.
The film, the crew of which was also predominantly female behind the camera, is worth seeing, but because of the extraordinarily touching and truly seeming game of the young actresses, who have long since made a name for themselves since this film. Lena Urzendowsky, 18 years old when shooting, is able to convey the fragility and strength, sadness and happiness of her character in a particularly lovable way. She also manages the feat of not making intimate moments such as the first menstrual period or masturbation appear too embarrassing or voyeuristic.
In an interview with the German Press Agency, the actress, who received a Grimme Prize for “The White Rabbit” at the age of 17, explains that she was only able to incorporate little of her own inner experience into her role design. “I grew up in a very different context,” says the Berliner, whose brother Sebastian (36, “Der Turm”) has also become a star. Urzendowsky recalls: “I grew up without a TV or a cell phone. I had my first box phone when I was 10, so that I could call me on the way to school. So I didn’t get much from social media. Fortunately, at high school I quickly found a group of friends with whom I never felt particularly obliged to adapt. “
Her parents would also have conveyed the inner strength that made her dare to become an actress. “They showed me early on how different the world is – and that you can actually always find a niche. As a result, I didn’t have the pressure to adapt myself to the exact place I was. ”The 21-year-old, who studies philosophy at Berlin’s Humboldt University, muses:“ Who knows each other well enough? to know where it belongs and where it doesn’t. Sometimes it takes time to get along. ”Dpa
