SAG DU ES MIR, the debut film of Michael Fetter Nathansky, begins with a camera view on the train bridge of the Neustädter Havelbucht in Potsdam with renovated prefab buildings in the background. A woman comes on the bridge from the left, bending down over the railing, looking at the water. A man appears from the right and pushes her into the water. This act, which the entire film revolves around, is just seen from a distance at first, and the camera gets closer to the involved people only after. Silke (Gisa Flake) is the woman who is pushed to the water without getting seriously injured. Moni (Christina Große), her sister, actually lives in Majorca, but returned in order to ostensibly help Silke. René (Marc Ben Puch), the man who pushed Silke to the water, battles with his anger issues, but doesn‘t really know why he did it. It seemingly has to do with his best friend Sven getting married. The story that Nathansky tells in SAG DU ES MIR is pretty sharply constructed and is told from Moni‘s, René‘s, and lastly, Silke‘s perspective. If an early Andreas Dresen film were to make a Brandenburg version of Kurosawa‘s RASHOMON, it might‘ve looked similar to this. Almost completely shot with a steadycam, with the actors speaking in a Brandenburg dialect, the film follows the stylistic codes of an authentic production while the narrative orbits around lies and truth and has to work hard at maintaining believability. That‘s not so easy for the film, even if the dialogue, with it‘s Brandburg brashness, does work. The truth behind all the deception comes off as a bit simplistic in the end.

Hannes Stein (INDIEKINO MAGAZIN)

Translation: Elinor Lewy