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Naked Animals

Classmates Katja, Sascha, Benni, Schöller, and Laila live near Berlin. Most of their parents are absent, they are left to their own devices. A raw, brutal coming-of-age drama.

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At the end of this winter and the following spring there might be a sunny summer, one after high school graduation, in which paths will separate and decisions will be made. In the phase that NAKED ANIMALS show, however, everything is gray with just a few spots of color for this group of teenagers. The light of the area that the five teenagers lives is dark and cloudy, only the sleeping bags and covers in their shared apartment is colorful. In Melanie Waelde’s impressive debut, which ran in February in the new Encounters section of the Berlinale, light and image reveal the vulnerability of her characters: Katja, Sascha, Benni, Schöller, and Laila live in an unnamed town near Berlin. Most of the parents are absent, the teens are left to their own devices, and move towards each other in solidary hopelessness between school, jiu jitsu, and smoking weed. A run-down apartment serves as the communal home. You share beds and a bathtub here, but nothing internal.
Like animals without fur, they are reliant on the protection of others, on the warmth around them. Katja (Marie Tragousti), the center of the group and the one whose perspective the film focuses on, is overwhelmed by her own power. Feelings are expressed in bodies here, language is difficult: they all carry hurt, from wrestling between friends, accidents, abuse, and trauma. The standard format of 3:2 forces a physical closeness which the teens aren’t emotionally ready for. This coming-of-age narrative is raw and brutal. Violence looms everywhere.
Sammy Scheuritzel, Luna Schaller, Paul Michael Stiehler, Michelangelo Fortuzzi, and Marie Tragousti succeed in showing their neglect and pressing need for love less with words and more with what is left unsaid. These naked animals have their herd, at least.

Lili Hering (INDIEKINO MAGAZIN)

Translation: Elinor Lewy

Credits

Original title: Nackte Tiere
Deutschland 2020, 83 min
Genre: Drama
Director: Melanie Waelde
Author: Melanie Waelde
DOP: Fion Mutert
Montage: Jessica Schneller, Facundo Nahuel Sanchez
Distributor: déjà-vu film
Cast: Marie Tragousti, Sammy Scheuritzel, Michelangelo Fortuzzi, Luna Schaller, Paul Michael Stiehler
FSK: 12
Release: 17.09.2020

Website

Screenings

  • OV Original version
  • OmU Original with German subtitles
  • OmeU Original with English subtitles
English/with English subtitles
All languages

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