Wut (2006) Online

"Wut" (translates to "anger") is a much debated German made-for-TV movie. It is about a juvenile Turkish second-generation immigrant named Can who pushes around Felix, a German boy his age to whom Can sells dope. The movie is set in Berlin, Germany.

Felix' parents feel that something is wrong and eventually find out that he is being bullied by Can. The situation gets more and more out of hands as the Turkish boy and Felix' father develop a mutual and violent hatred. Can terrorizes the family; he deliberately damages their property. The father reacts by having a friend beat the crap out of Can. While the situation between the two escalates, Felix and Can become something like friends.

As the father finds out that Can is selling drugs to Felix, he denounces Can. Can who is now running from the police and faces jail wants to take revenge on the family, the father in particular. Can thinks that Felix' father does not have pride and honor; that he is a wimp and not a real man but someone who has to ask for help and cannot protect his family himself. Can breaks into the family's house and threatens to kill them. He tells them about pride and honor; him preaching to them is not very realistic (the rest of the movie is shockingly realistic) but the scene is suspenseful and has a political message.

"Wut" is a bold and honest movie. Showing a Turkish boy as the bad guy in a German movie was a taboo. Felix states in the movie that German's have a "Hitler complex". That means that they put up with everything done to them by people from other countries or races because they fear to be regarded as Nazis or racists. Therein lies a problem in German society because people are uncomfortable talking about problems which immigration brings along (only the right-wing extremist parties do; everyone else feels they need to add "But I am not a Nazi" every time he or she says something negative about immigrants).

Bullies like Can exist; and for a fact they are often Turkish immigrants. The movie is bold as it says what most Germans think but don't dare to say; not meant here is that Turkish people are criminals but that there are problems integrating them into society. As shown in the movie, Germans and Turkish people often live in very different milieus. There is great inequality which is the main reason for Turkish adolescents to be more likely to become criminal than Germans of the same age. Turkish people do the jobs that Germans don't want to do and even though they officially are socially accepted unofficially many people see them as 'the Turks' rather than an integrated part of society. The movie criticizes both sides but its main purpose is not to criticize but to make people think.

And the movie is thought-provoking. The German rating is 12; the American would go something like: Rated R for violence, language and drug content. But everything shown in this movie (except of the ending maybe) happens in real life...all the time; many young people experience crime every day. The movie was planned to be broadcast at 8pm but then removed and shown at a later hour because the content was found to be inappropriate for young people. I have to disagree with that decision which was widely criticized as the movie's topic is especially important to young people (12+).

The implied message of the movie is that if a society stays passive for too long (as Felix does) and does not react in time to the problems of integration and immigration, it will have a fatal ending. You may disagree with the movie but the movie makes you think about the political problems discussed and forces you to form an opinion.

Felix' parents are described as liberal and open-minded (Most viewers would describe themselves that way too). The father occasionally smokes pot, both parents have extramarital affairs and try hard not to be conservative or square. The sub-plot concerning their affairs is interesting but weaker than and not relevant for the main story. It is, however, interesting to see the change which the father undergoes throughout the course of the movie. At the beginning he is all about political correctness but later on he has to find out that he is not free of racism. He tells Can "to get his Turkish ass out of the room." It's not really a bad insult but it is aimed at Can's origin. As the father undergoes that change, the viewer's believes are also tested.

The movie is not racist. It does not say that all Turkish people are pushers and bullies. It is in fact directed by a Turk (don't know if he is also half German). The director says that it must to be allowed to make a movie about the downside of immigration and call a spade a spade (looked that expression up in the dictionary hope it exists; means s.th. like being honest).

There really are areas in Berlin and in other cities in Germany (and everywhere else in the world) where the events described in the movie are common. For many people that might be hard to admit and an open mind is needed when watching this movie. If you are open-minded you will like the movie. You may not agree with every point the movie makes but this suspenseful and dramatic movie will make you think about the problems of integration.

**** 7.5/10 ***

A real sucker for any sort of German film (yes, even a television one), I was very pleased to encounter Wut being shown here on Irish television. Claiming to deal with themes of racism and identity within society, I happily sat back to watch.

Can is a Turkish teen living in Germany. One of two sons living with his elderly father, he is something of a mischief maker. He supplies drugs to the notably better off Felix, achieving laughs and entertainment at the expense of the upper class boy. Eventually, Felix's father learns of Can's escalating bullying of his son, and steps in to stop it.

Wut effectively portrays racial and class barriers in modern German society. The interaction between Felix and Can is fully believable, Can's sinister aura wonderfully hair-raising. Key to the film, the anti- hero is given humanity: a very powerful device which allows us to sympathise with him to a degree, giving us much to think about and forcing us to question the actions of some of the "more moral" characters we might traditionally find ourselves rooting for. The father's gradual realisation that he is all but powerless to stop the oppressive gang leader is an idea well conveyed by the emasculated performance of August Zirner. Felix's slow but steady idolisation of the powerful alpha-male who acts with far more paternal influence and masculinity than his father ever could has us biting our nails and worrying uneasily where the story will take us. Its eventual twists and turns are unforeseen, shocking, and tangibly dramatic, leading us to an interesting climax. In itself, however, the climax is somewhat lacking and flawed, though intriguing. The film achieves its intention, successfully acting as a catalyst to consideration, but not without bumps along the way.

Though marred by certain problems and not consistently gripping, Wut does encourage us to consider the message at its heart. The true appeal of the film lies in Felix's falling for the serpentine hissings of Can, fuelled by his disillusion with the world around him. Quite enjoyable as a whole, you could find far worse ways to spend time than watching Wut.

'Rage' ('Wut') is a film made for German TV about Turks in Germany. It was written and directed by a man born in Turkey who has lived in Germany most of his life and studied film-making there, just as the younger winner of the top prize in Berlin in 2004, Faith Akin of 'Head-On' ('Gegen die Wind'), was trained in the arts in Germany but identifies with the Turkish minority. While Akin's approach is complex and ironic, Aladag treats the German-Turkish conflicts schematically and simplistically.

Can (Oktay Özdemir) (pronounced like "John") is a cocky young Turk with bad teeth and a ponytail who is beating up and extorting money from Felix Laub (Robert Höler), a "nice" German boy on a daily basis. When Can Steals Felix's expensive sneakers his father Simon (August Zirner) finds out what has been going on and gets very angry.

The practical question is: what do you do in such a situation, since any action against Can and his gang might lead to reprisals? Felix may be wise to take the beatings and give the money, but he's in a dangerous situation. And Can, of course, is full of rage, and that's why tormenting Felix provides him with so much pleasure. Needless to say, there are other ways of expressing rage, like growing up and trying to campaign for one's rights. But 'Rage' simply exists within a context of the failure of Germany's "guest worker" program and the roiling discontent of the large Turkish minority of which both Can and Felix are victims.

'Rage' skewers middle class liberal German families that try to be "nice," aren't overtly racist toward the large Turkish population, and turn the other cheek when they are attacked, due in part in Simon's case, to what his son calls his "Hitler complex." Felix's father Simon (August Zirner) is a university philosophy teacher (soon to be promoted to full professor) who dates his young girl students, and his mother Christa (Corinna Harfouch) sells real estate and is having an affair with one of Simon's best friends. The film suggests middle class German liberals are spineless and morally weak; and in a sense questions Simon's masculinity, or at least his physical courage (though not Felix's). (Simon fails again and again to control Can and late in the picture is barely saved from committing an act of terrible cowardice, but still ends by exacting revenge.) Presumably there are more things in Heaven and earth than are dreamt of in Simon's philosophy, and these include knowing how to give someone "a good hiding," as the subtitles somewhat primly put it. He eventually gets Michael (Ralph Herforth) -- who he is soon to discover is his wife's current lover -- to deliver the "hiding" to Can for him. Can's behavior is so provocative -- the film itself is nothing if not provocative, at the cost of subtlety and even believability -- that one wonders if they have court orders in Germany. The Turkish guy not only is a danger to Felix, but enters his parents' house repeatedly and menaces and abuses them and breaks things.

But before things get that far, Simon goes to Can's apartment and asks his father, an older man, to make Can return the sneakers. Can brings them right away, in a bag, but this is when he first enters the Laubs' house and prances around abusing and mocking them. One wonders if Aladag hasn't spent some time studying the films of Michael Haneke. The climactic sequence in which Can gets really nasty seems as if it may owe a good deal to Haneke's 1997 'Funny Games.' In that, a pair of punks torment a family and make them play sadistic games with each other. Can is accused of only being brave when with his fellow punks, but in fact he does very well on his own. The young actor, Oktay Özdemir, deserves credit for playing with great boldness and conviction. On the other hand the German principals are cardboard figures. Christa is a stiff, bitchy wife, full of innuendos about her husband's spinelessness; Simon indeed seems incredibly wishy-washy, and poor Felix is a ridiculous good boy, polite to his parents, but equally eager to be Can's "friend" and convinced when Can with obvious mockery says they are "brothers." When Simon has reached his limit with Can, he manages to get him arrested for drug dealing, even though Felix was one of the customers he spied and in the police station Felix refuses to bear any witness to Can's criminal activity. Generations are in conflict, even though Felix and Simon don't fight. Can's father disowns him and Can weeps when he realizes this -- his sole moment of weakness.

'Rage' makes its points economically. The screenplay is swift-moving and pointed. The film tends to seem crude and exaggerated; there is no nuance in it. Conversely it is enormously effective in its clear aim of making viewers uncomfortable and illustrating the titular rage of young Turks.

Though there's no indication that Can's dignified, older father (Demir Gökgöl) is really poor, it's also clear that he's less well off than the Laubs. (Apparently the reason an associate professor has such an impressive spread is parental money.) Aladag has stated that for him Can is a hero, but this is a sad thing to know. Can is a prancing bully. Akin's anti-hero in 'Head-On,' Cahit, also wants to destroy himself as Can does, but the reasons are more complex, and in the hands of the immensely charismatic Birol Ünel, Cahit is funny and appealing. Two different approaches, both perhaps with their validity. If Aladag's 'Rage' arouses worthwhile debate of issues Germans have been unwilling to speak of, it will have had a positive value. But it feels like a film that would mostly just polarize or repel people.

Shown as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival 2007.

"Wut" is definitely a masterpiece! And in my opinion it is unworthy for such a good drama to just play it in television. This film is a socio-critical drama, which describes a social focus in our society. Most of the German dramas avail themselves of clichés and play down, this one here is the first movie, which shows the hard reality - even when it is very exaggerated. But this is necessary for the main message of the movie. In addition to that director Züli Aladag has found the two most impressive actors ever for these roles: Oktay Özdemir ("Knallhart"), whose acting as gang leader Can is genius and August Zirner, who gives a great performance as father, who does not know how to deal with his son's problems...

Aladag succeeded in making a critical view on the problematic situation of violence in German schools, compared with wrong integration. This movie could have also international success!

"Wut" ("Rage", "Fury", "Anger") is essentially three films, each one hopelessly mixed up with the other and therefor no film at all. If these made for TV film is anything at all, it does mostly resemble a screenwriter's idea badly in need of some additional thought.

The first film is the most interesting aspect of this project. It deals with a young man, who has been born into a foreign country, a country that stays foreign to his parents but not to him. A country nonetheless that chooses to treat this young man as a foreigner. That's what fuels the protagonist's rage against the "system" and those who represent it. Can's tragedy is that he has become a German, whether he likes it or not, whether Germany likes it or not. I'm sure - though I can't proof it - that's the film (take not of the working title) director Aladag wanted to make in the first place.

The second film deals with a totally inefficient, incompetent and in its core dysfunctional German family. Well bred, well taught, well to do losers. The son is stupid enough to join ranks with the young turks again and again, humiliation after humiliation. The father, a professor, may know his ways around books and lecturing halls, but has no idea about real life. The mother is not a written role at all but just there because there has to be a mother. It's Corinna Harfouch's achievement to let this nonety appear as something substantial. If "Wut" is discriminating against anybody or anything, it's discriminating against this German family, whose members act stupid because the script needs them to act stupid - otherwise the whole movie would simply implode into the void. "Wut" suffers from the same problem as did Hark Bohm's "Yasemin" almost twenty years ago. The Germans have to act stupid in order to set the much needed dramatic events in motion. No stupid Germans, no film.

The third film is the most dispisible one. In allowing the young Turk to be the aggressor, the heavy it trumpets almost all the time: Taboo-breaking! Taboo-breaking! See here, we're not politically correct. Therefor we tell the truth. Rubbish! There are young Turks who are victims of the migration process their parents have thrown them into, and there are young Turks who made themselves a success story and there are young turks who are criminals. End of story. "Wut" isn't even the first film to cast its immigrants as the baddies. And it's no more true or false than the next film. What's best about it is the acting, the script is the worst part and the direction bounces from one extreme to the other.

shocking taboo-breaker! Can, a young German pusher / drug dealer of Turkish immigrant's background, terrorizes the entire family of a university teacher until the very end, beginning with son Felix (a perfect victim). I see specially the professor's woman's part within the conflict as an extremely fatal and unhelpful one, since pseudo-powerful and pseudo-emancipated. Are our liberal (over-?) civilized democracies still able to stop such destructive aggressive human beings like Can? ...Or Achmadineschad? Why could this film not been shown in the early evening (8.15 pm) as announced first? It's subject will be specially important for younger people! However, a subject overdue to deal with!

Outside Turkey, Germany is the home for the largest Turkish community in the world with several millions of people of Turkish heritage living in the country. Naturally, Turkish-German film directors have also started leaving their mark on the country's long cinematic tradition, the most important such filmmaker being F a t i h Akin who is known for movies like Head-On (2004) and The Edge of Heaven (2007). Another director who has examined the relations of Turks and native Germans in his work is Züli Aladag whose 2006 TV movie Rage raised some controversy upon its initial release in Germany.

Among the protagonists of the movie is Felix Laub (Robert Höller), the teenage son of a wealthy university professor of literature Simon Laub (August Zirner). When Felix is repeatedly bullied and robbed by a Turkish gang led by the ruthless thug Can (Oktay Özdemir), the moderately liberal Simon and his wife Christa (Corinna Harfouch) try various methods to sort out the problems between Felix and Can but only seem to make things worse. Ultimately peaceful methods cease to be the only ones considered by Simon and a dramatic showdown is inevitable.

Rage works interestingly on both general and personal levels and avoids giving easy answers to the problems portrayed. In the core of the story is the conflicting relationship of Felix and Can: the former keeps coming back to the latter despite the mistreat, but at times they get along pretty well. By hanging out with Can's gang Felix is probably rebelling against his mild-mannered father who is indeed accused of being aloof even by his wife. Under their successful surface Felix's parents are far from perfect but Can is not free of familial troubles either, although he has caused his situation himself by clinging to his self-applied tough guy image despite his inner insecurity – he is by no means a mere victim of circumstances.

Besides the grassroot level changes in the characters' attitudes, there is an underlying theme of the whole country's stance on problems related to immigration. Demands for tougher laws regarding the matter easily evoke unpleasant connotations to Germany's Nazi past, so the issue is even more sensitive there than in many other countries. During Rage's Funny Games-style finale the suspense thickens pretty excitingly and the viewer becomes anxious to find out how the situation is resolved since it would be tempting to interpret the ending as the movie's message or stance on the issue: who (if anyone) gets killed and is the act portrayed as heroic or cowardly? Without spoiling anything, the story and the mood are rather pessimistic about there being a neat little solution that would satisfy both parties.

Visually the movie is nothing very absorbing and the ending feels slightly rushed, but all in all I think Rage is worth seeing among its peers, i.e. films portraying conflict between ethnic groups. The German protagonists feel realistic enough and the gap-toothed Oktay Özdemir is a great choice for the role of the aggressive Can. I have admittedly not seen many examples of Turkish-German cinema but based on Rage and F a t i h Akin's The Edge of Heaven, there appear to be quality films to be found there.

I've seen this film a few days ago and i'm still a bit angry about the time i wasted on it. If i had known how bad i gets in the second half, i wouldn't had started watching it. Basically, i'm not against German movies, there are even many German ones amongst my favorites, but this film is crap. The first sequence starts with break dancing Turkish juveniles with migration background (according to the German official's language). In fact, i'm living all my live in an area with a quite high proportion of foreigners, especially Turkish people and i've never seen or heard of Turkish break-dancers or basket-ballplayers. Maybe there are some on German streets, but i think this was only put into this film to satisfy the stereotype image of the unexperienced viewers. I could accept the subplot dealing with problems in the relationship of the young boy's parents and in fact the acting of all actors is solid. But after all a pretentious viewer has to admit, big parts of the screenplay is rubbish. The whole story is based on the young boys improbable naivety. After he got beaten repeatedly, he accuses his father, why his generation has had let so many violent people into Germany, just to declare friendship a few days later with the same boy, who is responsible, that he got beaten up a few days before. Maybe, this review has made you curious for this movie and in fact i can't keep you away from this film, but i can recommend you an similar film, which is also set in a similar surrounding and really worth watching it: Knallhart by Detlev Buck.

So,so, after the U.S. on-screen garbage that 'Alpha Dog' was, now comes its German update, with which it shares striking similarities: in the first case, we have this coward degenerate sub-human sissy of 'Johnny Truelove'(what a ridiculous name, is it supposed to be funny?) with his bunch of scumbags, in the second case, we have the coward pusher degenerate sub-human sissy 'Chan' (which is supposed to mean 'soul', oh, what poetry, I'm impressed....)with his own bunch of equally degenerate scumbags. The first one kidnaps and decides to kill in cold blood a 15 year-old boy, because he hasn't got the balls to face kidnapping charges and to face jail, the second one terrorizes another 15 year-old or something beyond exhaustion, and then takes on his family, because he equally has no balls at all to face jail life: it is much easier to take on a harmless kid, especially with your band, than to face men who got, for instance, the balls to rob a bank and face armed cops, isn't it? But the most important point that these Z-graded flicks share, and which is, I think, the most nauseating, is that 'Wut', exactly the same way as 'Alpha Dog', glorifies and describes with a very disgusting complacency, the behaviour of the harasser and his followers, take for instance the numerous scenes (staightforward 'Alpha Dog'ripoff) where the director wants to give the impression that the victim has the 'time of his life' with his torturer, and therefore clearly tries to arouse sympathy for this scumbag of Chan, and suggests that this is an excuse for all the evil he spreads around him. Oh, and on top of that, the stupidity here reaches a peak at the end of the movie, when, after the 'hero' or rather the CRIMINAL, because that's what he (or should I say it) is, has finally gotten what he deserved, we hear this sad music as the credits rolls, which, is I suppose, intended to make us feel sorry to what happened to him? No, I do not buy it, this is totally ludicrous. In short, these two 'filmmakers' are a real shame to cinema because of their one-sided and disgusting position on that subject matter.By the way, I suggest they should team up to direct, let's say 'Johnny Truelove meets Chan'. Oh, sorry, I forgot Chan is dead and Johnny Truelove will probably also be, so it would be difficult, unless they make them meet in the after life...