At some point, nine-year-old Benni stands on a hill. Again and again she calls "Mama, Mama, Mama" in the wide landscape of the Lüneburg Heath. Faster, louder, more pleading are those calls. But the words die and with them the hoped-for love, security and security of the mother.
It is one of the most oppressive, most touching moments in Nora Fingscheidt's surprise hit "System Sprenger". At the Berlinale he won the Silver Bear this year, now he is going to Germany for the Oscar race for the best foreign language film. It's a movie that hits its audience with full force, emotionally, acoustically, visually. And then it only causes consternation.
"Systemsprenger" is a term from the youth welfare for children and young people, for which there is no more space - not in the own family, not in foster homes, homes, living groups, often not even in closed psychiatric hospitals, because they are too young. Benni (Helena Zengel) is such a system splinter: traumatized from early childhood, uncontrollable, aggressive. When she feels cornered, she casts swear words around herself and objects. Once she hurls a Bobbycar against safety glass until it bounces.
Almost 30 residential projects and homes have thrown them out. Her unstable mother (Lisa Hagmeister), with changing friends and two smaller children, is completely overwhelmed. The good soul of the youth welfare office, Ms. Bafané (Gabriela Maria Schmeide), does not give up Benni, but she is soon at the end of her powers and possibilities.
Empathy for everyone
Micha (Albrecht Schuch) appears. Actually, he works with violent young people, but now is the social worker Bennis school companion. He meets her uncontrollable rudeness and anger with serenity and loving Raubeinigkeit. When she once again completely ausschmecken, and there is no place for them, he suggests a three-week stay in his hut in the Lüneburg Heath.
Fresh air, tranquility, a simple life and unrestricted attention are good for the girl. But of course holidays have their end, of course, Micha can not be their substitute father - and of course, the spiral of violence, disappointment and lack of security after return returns incessantly.
"System Sprenger"
Germany, 2019
Written and directed by Nora Fingscheidt
Starring: Helena Zengel, Albrecht Abraham Schuch, Gabriela Maria Schmeide
Production: Kineo Filmproduktion, Weydemann Bros et al.
Rental: Port au Prince Pictures
Length: 125 minutes
FSK: free from 12 years
Start: 19 September 2019
So far, Nora Fingscheidt has mainly filmed documentaries, you can tell that "System Sprenger", and that is perhaps one of the problems of this film. For more than six years she has researched, visited facilities, met system sprinklers, exchanged ideas with educators, social workers and doctors. So she meets all her characters with almost the same empathy, the schoolmate Micha, who eventually loses his professional distance, the nice woman Bafané, the patient doctor, the brave caretakers, even the annoyed social workers. This reveals Fingscheidt's good intentions, her enlightened approach.
- From the world of a disturbed nine-year-old: Read more about Oscar candidate Nora Fingscheidt
Above all, the great actress Helena Zengel wears the film. Almost nine years old when filming, she embodies this lonely, desperate, angry girl almost virtuoso. Unique is her withdrawn and so expressive posture. Even in its gentle, happy moments, this child is suspicious. The inner turmoil, the boundless anger is always palpable.
However, Fingscheidt emphasizes this too strikingly. Sequences of memories she dips into blur, (alb) dreams in bright red. When Benni strikes again, she wears a screaming pink anorak. Lying on the head or chest with probes in the clinic, pastel T-shirts pull every color and power out of the girl, as well as in the lonely moments. All this does not fail. However, Fingscheidt does not develop his own pictorial language and thus a second narrative level.
In the video: The trailer for "System Sprenger"
Port au Prince Pictures
Instead, she turns narrative still and another round, can again and again fail a rescue attempt, creates time after time tension to always dissolve it immediately. The realization that society is overwhelmed by children like Benni, and only the unqualified love and affection of the mother could have saved the girl - she is thin in the end.
