[DER BUNKER
screens Tuesday April 5th at 9:00 pm and Wednesday April 6th at 11:45 am at the
Cleveland International Film Festival.]
Review by Bob Ignizio
At times, DER BUNKER
generates the same kind of quiet mystery and unease as Takashi Miike’s AUDITION. We’re not quite sure what’s
going on in the titular abode, where an unnamed father (David Scheller) and
mother (Oona von Maydell) live with their overgrown man-child Klaus (Daniel
Fripan), but something’s definitely not right. Nonetheless, a nameless student
(Pit Bukowski) answering the family’s ad for a room to let moves in. He soon
finds himself roped into tutoring duty for young Klaus, who is being groomed
for great things by his parents despite obvious mental shortcomings. He also
begins an affair with the mother, which seems ill advised given her penchant
for breast feeding her adult son and the talking scar on her leg which she
claims is really an alien intelligence. So yeah, it’s that kind of movie.
The claustrophobic setting, small cast, and twisted family
dynamics played for black humor are reminiscent of David Lynch’s ERASERHEAD and, to a lesser degree,
John Waters PINK FLAMINGOS, while
the mother’s odd deformity and the general tone of deadpan weirdness recalls
Adam Rifkin’s THE DARK BACKWARD. And
much like the casts of those films, the actors here totally commit to the odd
premise they’ve been asked to inhabit by writer/director
Nikias Chryssos. It’s largely due to that commitment that
the film plays as well as it does despite being difficult to get a handle on at
times.
Difficult, sure, but not impenetrable.
DER BUNKER seems
to be mainly concerned with the unrealistic expectations parents can place on
their progeny, the lengths they will go to in order to get them closer to
achieving those goals, and the often unhealthy desire to keep seeing their
offspring as children even as they enter into adulthood and should be breaking
away on their own. Really, it’s a theme one imagines might resonate with a lot
of people, delivered in a manner that seems almost calculated to thin the
numbers of potential audience members. But that’s Chryssos’ vision, and like
his cast he is committed to realizing it in its purist form. Not only does that
result in a movie worthy of respect, but a compelling and weirdly entertaining
one, as well. 3 out of 4 stars.
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