RUCKENWIND (LIGHT GRADIENT)

Germany, 2009, 75 minutes, Colour.

A brief, sometimes lyrical, tale of two young men on a cycling trip into a forest. While much of the narrative is filmed in realistic style, much of it is poetic, lingering on leaves, trees, water, light in pretty, even beautiful compositions.

Director, cast and crew went for two weeks into an autumn forest, improvising, letting the cast imagine what could happen in these circumstances. The two young men react off each other then, when lost, come upon an isolated farm, the mother who runs it, genial, and her adolescent son, initially hostile.

Some episodes ring true, others seem contrived.

The main contrivance is a fable at the beginning and end about the possible friendship between a fox and a rabbit – open for interpretation or symbolism – and an 18th century legend about a lost count.

The two young men are in a relationship but this is shown more naturalistically than pruriently.

1.An experiment in style, content, drama?

2.The forest, lakes, the farm? And the realism of the freeway?

3.The range of music, chorale, modern?

4.The title, the rise in slope for bike riding? The reference to the light and shades of light?

5.The framework, Johann in the institution? The parable of the fox and the rabbit? Its applications?

6.Count Witzlow and the search for the child? The dead swan? The symbol of death?

7.The narrative, Robyn and Johann, together for two months, whose idea for the trip? The train ride, the photos? Bike riding, the roads, the map, the tent poles not in the bag, their standing on the bridge, looking at the cars, the embrace? The swimming? The bikes being robbed? Their stealing the food from the tourists? The tent in the trees? The relationship?

8.Blame, the quarrel between the two, arriving at the farm, being locked in the barn, the boy with the gun, his mother’s arrival, the welcome? The meal, talk, the boy and his isolation, reading? Work on the farm? The mother hosing them down? The talking about the legends? Going out fishing, rowing? Johann eating the berries, the effect, his illness?

9.Johann and his jealousy, suspicions of Robyn, the boy? The mother and her care for him?

10.The decision to leave, setting up the trap in the forest, wrestling with the unseen presence, being caught in the trap?

11.The overall effect, the relationship, each of the boys, the experience of the forest? A modernisation of old German fairy tales?