Mathilda, great tough and fried, but still not unappealed by Barbara Sukowa, embodies a conservative defender of the Frontex regime.
Photo: color film rental
To edit current political issues filmically is a special challenge anyway – at dem The permanent topic of recent years, the migration, all the more. The traps that filmmakers can fall into are Legion: neither should the story be too agitating, not even because of loud empathy and clichés into the kitschy, nor should it be monoperive. At the same time, such a movie should also entertain its audience in the best case. Angelina Maccarone tried this as a director and screenwriter in the political drama »Sclandestin« and received the German screenplay price for uncomfortable books for the 2017 book. The film starts in the German -language cinemas this Thursday.
When writing to the surrounding traps, he soon culminates in the absurdity that the migrant terrorist who briefly appears in the film is declared atheistic anarchist (sic!) – Anarchists and aarthers are apparently the only one that can be sealed terrorist tendencies without anyone complaining. It is easy to understand that maccarone in a film like “Screenestin” does not necessarily have to connect migrants from the Arab world with religiously motivated terrorism, but the alternative to controversy is opportunism. And so the story about the Moroccan refugee Malik (Habib Adda), the conservative politician Mathilda (Barbara Sukowa), whose assistant Amina (Banafshe Hourmazdi) and the artist Richard (Lambert Wilson) sometimes work and construct.
The experienced cinema and television director Maccarone stages her story quite captivating. The backdrops are the office towers of the Frankfurter City, an escape and refugee story is told from the personal perspective of the four main characters.
First we learn from a terrorist attack on a bank building. Then the experiences of the protagonists are represented in one chapter, the attack only plays a role in the end. This narrative trick enables Maccarone to deliberately leave relationships in the unclear in order to clarify them later; And here the script achieves an astonishing congruence between shape and content. Because what the refugee Malik should not not see is shown in detail the cinema audience later.
You can feel the paternalism of the German “hosts” in our own bad conscience when we see Mathilda and Richard behind Malik’s back male about his future: »What should I do? Buy a ticket to Tangier? ” -” Good idea, I pay for it. ” -” And what should Malik tell the officials when entering? “
Malik had previously traveled to Germany in the sprinter of the aging British artist Richard von Morocco. Richard, who lives in Morocco and knows Malik, knew nothing about it, but is very happy to know the 17-year-old near him, because he has a romantic interest in him. Malik reluctantly goes into this – it is complicated, and one of the socio -political topics of the film, namely the enormous gap between power between rescuers and saved people, is strikingly set.
Other are the routine bigotry and empathy of top politicians. Mathilda, great tough and fried, but still not unclearly represented by Barbara Sukowa, regularly delivers talking with her left-wing-progressive political opponent Sybille as a conservative defender of the Frontex regime. However, these explicitly political arguments consist exclusively of platitudes; In the concrete political phrases, the film is unamined until embarrassment.
Meanwhile, Mathilda’s long -time friend Richard now puts Malik in her apartment and also asks her to get a visa for him. And as it is always like this: As soon as you get to know the abstract danger personally, you can see that the supposedly deadly refugees are in truth in truth that you can talk, smoke and have breakfast pretty well, as Mathilda soon discovers.
Sukowa and Malik actor Habib Adda play the rapprochement of the two shiny; In general, Maccarone and her ensemble manage to convey the ambivalences of personal relationships of their characters. The strengths of the film can be found here.
Ultimately, however, it is the career lawyer Amina, born in Germany, who in turn has Moroccan roots, who – although she previously treated Malik less cold than her boss Mathilda – is the only one as the refugee is the only side when he is arrested when it comes to suspicion of terrorism: “I know how important every person was who was committed to me,” she explains Mathilda her motivation. From Amina’s perspective, discrimination can only be overcome through practical solidarity, while Mathilda with her utilitarian hybris (»for She I can use it. Do you think I don’t know that this job is far below your skills? Two or three years in Louis’ law firm, and then If you are able to work really effectively for others «) Hearless and unsolidaric – in the final, Maccarone finally dares to do something like careful ideology criticism.
In “Sclandestin”, however, we learn about the real functioning of the global late capitalist exploitation regime, which only causes the extreme migration pressure and the increasingly cynical elites and its right -wing extremist persons.
“Screen”, Germany 2024. Director Book: Angelina Maccarone. With: Habib Adda, Lambert Wilson, Barbara Sukowa, Banafshe Hourmazdi, Katharina Schüttler. 124 min.