Ex
((GERMAN))
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A dark, downbeat look into the world of rootless young Berliners playing with drugs and crime, "Ex" is the latest screen exploration of Generation X, German style. Shot by actor-turned-director Mark Schlichter as his graduation project at the German Film & Television Academy, pic draws much of its raw sincerity from an intense and believable young cast. It split the best German film prize at the Munich Filmfest, where it was an audience favorite. Most offshore attention is likely to come from the fest circuit.
Gang leader Mario (Robert Viktor Minich) is shaken by his best friend's death while racing in a stolen car, but goes on living the only life he knows. He loses g.f. Sarah (Christiane Paul) to a newcomer, Robert (Andreas Dinah Drakite) , who is black, good looking and a cut less desperate than the rest of the gang.
Blind with jealousy, Mario recklessly gets in over his head with a big-league Russian drug dealer (Wolfram Berger), who gives him a gun. Tragedy is naturally around the corner, though pic keeps viewers guessing how it will be played out.
"Ex" is painted in the colors of nighttime Berlin. Its band of outsiders, who at first seem brainless and repugnant, come through in the end as confused human beings in urgent need of love and acceptance. Pic barely touches on their family or social backgrounds.
In this hellish subculture where cokeheads gets their kicks staging chicken races in stolen cars, the Robert-Sarah romance plays like a dangerous if enchanted interlude. Paul is touching as the hard-living, hard-loving Sarah. As the big loser Mario, Minich delivers a shrieking perf that raises his two-bit hoodlum to a level of tragic madness.
Lensed on windswept rooftops and in run-down apartment buildings, pic suffers little from being shot on a shoestring.
Camera (color, Super 16/35mm), Carl F. Koschnick; editor, Monika Kappl-Smith; music, Klaus Wagner; production design, Mark Tillmann; sound (Dolby), Peter Kellerhals. Reviewed at Munich Filmfest, June 30, 1995. Running time: 84 MIN.
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