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The last thing Armin sees of the populated world is a party ship passing by at night on the Weser with discolored and ecstatically dancing people. After that, the cinematographer from Berlin has a film crack, rather a glitch, and nothing is more like before: Semi-fueled cars are at an open engine at gas stations, driverless lorries have pushed into each other on streets, the party ship drives unmanned on the river.

Between two shots in "In My Room," people disappear, a statement that is not explained in the film, and makes it a genre piece: first, a dystopian science-fiction film in which a person stumbles through a post-apocalyptic world; then a Robinsonade, in which the same man creates a new world out of civilizational remains.

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"In My Room": Tell me where the people are

We first met Armin as a not very likeable urban cave dweller. If he ventures into the world as a cameraman, he confuses the on and off button and delivers pictures of politician interviews on which the important thing, the statements, is missing. In his student apartment, which has been preserved in adult life, he unsuccessfully tries to seduce a much younger woman. Out of the youth room in his Westphalian birthplace, he watches his grandmother die.

New movements, new muscles

Ulrich Köhler's new film is titled "In My Room", as in "Bungalow" (2002) and "Montag die Fenster" (2006), he tells of untempered heroes who try to set themselves up and fall from an awkward living situation to the next one , The title of the new film is a Beach Boys quote: Anyone who buries himself in his room thinks he can rule out all fears and worries, it says. When Armin finally ventures out into the world, pretty much everything that worries and worries him seems to have vanished.

As laconically as Ulrich Köhler outlines Armin's life in the first third of the film, he casually lets the special effect light up. Few pictures are enough to re-sort the world of "In My Room": East Westphalia suddenly deserted, dogs without a master barking, horses left forgotten in car trailers, Armin takes the fastest orphaned car he can find and drives through the city unhindered Villages.

"In My Room"
Germany 2018
Written and directed by Ulrich Köhler
Actor: Hans Loew, Elena Radonicich, Michael Wittenborn, Ruth Bickelhaupt
Production: Pandora Filmproduktion, Echo Film, accomplices Film et al.
Distribution: Pandora Film Distribution
FSK: 12 years
Length: 120 minutes
Start: 8th November 2018

Once again, there is a film tear, just as Köhler's cameraman Patrick Orth has confused switching on and off buttons. Suddenly there is summer, the front gardens in the district of Minden are already overgrown with weeds, wild boars are running over the motorway, the offers in the shopping center are still the same. Armin now has a beard, a sinewy, half-clothed natural-human body, he leads us with safe movements in his new room: a hut with animals, collected from the surrounding houses Schöner-living facility, self-stitched covers for the Verandasessel.

Hans Löw does not play Robinson as a special effect, but as an actual embodiment: New movements create new muscles. The camera closely observes this body, is interested in its new relationship to the world, in what it does with its freedom.

As in Vlotho

"In My Room" is a stroke of luck in German cinema. The savage appropriation of genre formulas acts like a breath of fresh air in current cinematic inventories of the state of the nation, and at the same time it is very special how Köhler portrays his post-apocalyptic speculation: Robinson's deserted paradise remains in the radius of Ostwestfalen-Lippe, his new living space looks Quick as a family home in Vlotho, he cooks for a recipe book of his grandmother, and one would not be surprised if he would borrow from the orphaned video store only movies with Ben Affleck.

And yet - or maybe because of that - the movie pulls the ground from under your feet.

In the video: The trailer for "In My Room "

Video

Pandora

In the last third we suddenly see Armin from another observer perspective. Robinson is not alone. Friday is a woman, and she will not settle in his world. But even that works in "In My Room" not as a special effect, but as an odd joke about what people imagine under freedom.

Sometimes that's just a bag of gummy bears from the unguarded gas station shop. Or a song from the Pet Shop Boys.