THE BONE MAN (DER KNOCHENMANN)
Austria, 2009, 121 minutes, Colour.
Josef Hader, Birgit Minichmayr.
Directed by Wolfgang Murnberger.
The third film in a series based on crime novels by Wolf Haas. The second was Silentium. Silentium, set in a seminary, with very dark themes of money, lies and sexuality was very serious indeed. The Bone Man has a serious setting, but is very facetious in tone, ironies,jokes and quips – a strange example of Germanic humour.
The central character is a former policeman now re-possessing cars. One assignment takes him to a village restaurant in the snow-clad countryside. There are crimes - blackmail and murder – but he does minimal detection and simply stumbles into the solution. No tense sleuthing here or tantalising clues.
The other setting is a Bratislava sex club where dire things happen and cover-ups are the order of the day (or night).
The owner of the restaurant, who grinds chicken bones for chicken-feed recycling and who, therefore, can grind corpses, is a big brutal man who can't stand his son who wants his inheritance.
While the film is on screen, the curiosity factor keeps us going but, in retrospect, it's not really all that much of a plot for a crime thriller and it really has little tension – which we may not notice at the time because of the facetiousness.
1.Crime thriller, Austrian style? The local crime? Detection? The former policeman and his work?
2.The tone: grim – the Russians, prostitution and rackets, the restaurant and the bones?
3.The tone: facetious – Brenner, comic touches, jokes, gallows humour, quips?
4.The introduction and the comment on motivation? The sex club, the Russians, the fall from the window, faking death? The false documents? The restaurant owner and presence, the Russian photographing the numberplate, leading to blackmail, the confrontation, the owner killing him, butchering and grinding him? The girl accompanying him, his pushing the car and its crashing into the river? His son finding the documents and the cassette? His partner, appearing in the wheelchair, pursuing the owner? The jokes about the wheelchair, the attack? His hanging in the freezer?
5.Brenner and Berti – the repossession job, the mother and the child for the kindergarten and his giving them a lift, the new job, the argument in the bar? Berti and the girl? The cigarettes? The job, going into the snow country?
6.The restaurant owner, his hostility, the waitress, the members of the public, the staff? The wife and her husband? The car, its being moved? Pauli wanting to hire him to follow his father? His staying, travelling with Pauli’s wife, refusing the job? Berti’s frantic calls?
7.Pauli, following his father, his father’s evasive driving, causing the crash? The hostility between father and son? Hostility from his wife? His desperation, finding the documents, wanting to go further, watching the video, going to the police, their considering it a hoax – the man in the wheelchair? The father and tying him up, Brenner freeing him, stabbing his father? Everybody leaving him? Yet his being the owner of the restaurant?
8.The butcher, the chickens, the grinding, the wife and the delivery of the feed, Brenner accompanying her? The relationship, the sexual encounter, going down for the raffle, her leaving her husband?
9.Berti and his anger, arriving, the finger in the car, talking with the man with the sex operation, the detail? The attraction?
10.The character of the restaurant owner, his being in the bar and the club in Bratislava, the compromise, the return, taking the girl, looking after her? The blackmail? Tying his son up, the threats, managing the party, the confrontation with Brenner? Almost killing Brenner?
11.How satisfying as a crime drama, thriller, comic touches?
