TRIBUTES AND RETROSPECTIVES
Christian Petzold |
© D.R.
Wolfsburg
Christian Petzold
2003 - Germany - 1h30
Screenings :
monday 22 - 10:45 am - Pathé - 8
wednesday 24 - 10:00 am - Pathé - 8
Philipp Gerber is a car dealer in Wolfsburg, the German car capital. One day he accidentally knocks over a child. He panics and leaves the scene, before being gripped by remorse and trying to find out more about the victim. At the hospital, where the child is in a coma, Philipp meets Laura, the boy's mother.
The plot is similar to Claude Chabrol's Que la bête meure (The Beast Must Die) (1969) without Chabrol's film ever being mentioned. “The countryside redivided by tarmac is crossed by the agitation of cars, like the first shot of Wolfburg's credits is brutally torn by the red line of the car where the protagonists sleep, eat, kill. Wolfburg is a film about guilt without confession and, at the same time, a sociological film about German people's attachment to their cars. Territories are criss-crossed in the search for clients and/or victims, unless the characters are trying to escape from their pasts or, quite simply, because they feel foreign to their present.” (Pierre Gras; Good bye Fassbinder !, 2011)
CAST AND CREW
Cast : Benno Fürmann, Nina Hoss, Antje Westermann, Astrid Meyerfeldt, Matthias Matschke
Screenplay : Christian Petzold
Cinematography : Hans Fromm
Sound : Martin Ehlers-Falkenberg, Andreas Mücke-Niesytka
Editing : Bettina Böhler
Music : Stefan Will
Production : ARTE, Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF), teamWorx Television & Film
French distributor : Deutsche Kinemathek