Thomas Stuber - Teenage Angst (2008)

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From DVD Talk

The Movie
Don't get me wrong--I like watching a bunch of rich, sexually charged guys behaving badly in an all-male boarding school bursting with homoerotic imagery just as much as the rest of you. So I was more than happy to check out Teenage Angst, the oddly generic title (perhaps engineered by marketers for a North American DVD audience) of director Thomas Stuber's 61-minute German film.

It focuses on the relationship among four young men at an exclusive private school: Konstantin Sturmer (Franz Dinda) is the film's central character, who arrives back on campus after a family funeral; Drybusch (Niklas Kohrt) is the aggressive alpha male leader of the pack, a vocal, charismatic dictator; Bogatsch (Michael Ginsburg) is Drybusch's right-hand man, following his leader's narrow-minded, power hungry, woman-hating ways; and Leibnitz (Janusz Kocaj) is the quiet doormat aching for acceptance. All four are watched over by a skeptical school supervisor (Michael Schweighöfer) who tries to keep them focused but proves to be out of touch.

At Drybusch's request, the four friends frequently retreat at night to an abandoned home close to campus, where drugs and hazing rituals separate the men from the boys. "We have assembled today to eternally remove living a lie and public school kid stuff," says the leader. "Self-denial, morals, discipline, social service...bullshit! That's not reality!" Drybusch envisions his own Lord of the Flies existence, where the young men construct their own rules and family, defend their fort and play in their quest for the two most important things in life: money and muff. "The fall from grace..." notes Drybusch of his Bible studies, "the moment human beings learn good from bad, they are like God. And God fears that."

But after an incident involving a local waitress with some poor judgment of her own (Stephanie Schönfeld), the group becomes further fractured as tough guys Drybusch and Bogatsch exert their control over Leibnitz and Konstantin--who slowly begins to question the point of their fraternity. Things get further out of hand, and Leibnitz becomes a bigger target while Konstantin tries to balance his desire to be popular with his quest to do the right thing--and stand up against the bullies.

The film, like most of its characters, has an inflated sense of itself. The four young men are more ideas than people, and the movie is an amateur mix of many movies--like School Ties, The Outsiders, Mean Creek and a ton of others--that do a much better job at portraying the pain of adolescence, the desire for acceptance, the ache of loneliness and the danger of group think.

The final scenes hint at something meaningful, but ultimately wimp out. Leibnitz and Bogatsch in particular fall victim to writer Holger Jäckle's artistic ambitions, as their actions (or inactions) become convenient story devices that betray what could have been more believable developments. The standoff at the end and its aftermath at the school are riddled with melodramatic moments (you've got to be kidding me with the bathroom door scene!), severely hampering the film's ending and overall impact.

Teenage Angst isn't bad, it's just not unique enough to stand out. Given 30 more minutes, the film might have been able to save itself. It's a project that dabbles with deep meaning but ultimately drowns in its lofty goals, relying on drugs and dirty deeds--and not meaningful character or story development--to stand out.

NO PASS

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Saturday, July 3, 2010

Thomas Stuber - Teenage Angst (2008)

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