Best movie of this year hands down!

Simply A Masterpiece

hyped garbage

Fresh and Exciting

This is the first movie review I am writing in my life. I am writing it because none of the reviews I read (after watching the film) seem to grasp the primal emotions the movie conveyed for me. I feel so weird about this. I actually have the impression some of the reviewers are not able to feel the abyssal anti-pedagogic methods in all their bleakness and brutality. Could it be that they simply are not able to open themselves for this sort of raw, unprocessed emotion?This movie caught me completely unprepared, and may be that's why it left such an impact on me. I just switched on the TV and the movie popped up, showing the scene where Wolfgang, the protagonist, is standing around naked with his clothing in his hands. Now I am expecting to hear the screams of Wolfgang in my head for days.Most people seem to criticize two things: 1.) The predictable story-line. 2.) The exaggerated portrayal of the life at Freistatt.As to 1.) Yes. It is predictable at times. I only needed few seconds to recognize the direction the movie was gonna lead to. However, when Wolfgang was buried alive, I was shocked. I didn't think he'd survive (spoiler: he did so because it was a planned action, he got un-buried before he suffocated). I also liked the ending. It was not a happy ending, it was not a cruel ending, it was a right ending. What Wolfgang experienced was too cruel to not traumatize him. At the end he was free, but I could tell that he would never be able to lead a normal life.As to 2.) I don't know how much the movie sticks to the actual events, or whether or not it does them justice. (I am also wondering: How much do the other reviewers know about this? Have they been there? If not, which knowledge enables them to make a judgment like that?) I don't have the feeling that this is what the movie is about anyway. Not at a single point the movie felt like a historic documentation to me, but like a story about a boy with an instinct for freedom, fighting against an oppressive system. At points, it almost felt like a miniature 1984 to me, especially regarding the circumstance that Wolfgang's drive for freedom was finally broken - after his mother let him down and he got buried alive. Nevertheless he made the right decision and didn't return to his mother at the end.This is not a movie to analyze and think about much. It's a movie to feel and connect with your instincts. Reviewers who filter it by looking at it through their abstract glasses are missing its essence. And I feel inclined to suspect they don't have a healthy connection to their primal instincts themselves. I know one should avoid becoming personal, but I just can't say otherwise.Much respect to Louis Hofmann, who did a splendid job as Wolfgang.

"Freistatt" is a little town in northern Germany, known for its harsh correctional institution for kids. The head of the institution develops oblique and treacherous activities, enjoying the boys' free labor to cut some peat around the local swamps. Meanwhile, rigorous discipline is imposed inside the house. The watchers apply collective punishments in response to individual faults and, inevitably, encourage blatant bullying. Some 40 miles from Freistatt, lives Wolfgang. Wolfgang is your average troublesome teenager from the late 60s. He is a rocker, an adventurer, he is cool, fascinated with bikes and he is violent. He loves his mother, but can't bear her new husband. They hate each other, both want to get rid of the other. The stepfather, however, holds certain status at home. He is the main authority and ultimately enforces his will. Wolfgang doesn't help either: he challenges his stepfather in a most provocative way. "You can do better than that", Wolfgang says after his new dad slaps him.Wolfgang is then sent to the borstal. There he suffers. Period. Misery and humiliations, beatings and pain. The protagonist undergoes countless atrocities, consecutive displays of cruelty. The director Marc Brummund seems to love these scenes. He explores them to the point that any connotation besides violence is lost. Pure evil, all of them. "They have already beaten Wolfgang? Well, tell him to mock the aggressors, rip out some more tomatoes, then we have a new excuse to beat him!"For a big part of "Freistatt", Brummund was only interested in terrifying the spectators. An exceptional take, however, drew my attention: Wolfgang betrayed by his own mother. It was impacting, I must admit. A wonderful touch. Nonetheless, just like the other villainies, this one was poorly handled. Why did Wolfgang reveal his scars and lesions, irrefutable evidence of mistreatment, so late? It's incomprehensible. But you might guess. Brummund wasn't satisfied. One can't have too much of a bad thing. An item from his "violence note" remained unchecked. He still had to bury Wolfgang and the bloody boy managed to come back home! Brummund found a good solution, but it'd never work in his hands. Perhaps, I am too harsh. I read that "Freistatt" is based on real accounts from Wolfgang Rosenkötter, who attended the house a long time ago. It's possible that the events depicted did happen, though not on a systematic basis as the film suggests. Marc Brummund could have expanded the "targets", investigating the background of the other boys and their own sufferings, instead of continuously whipping Wolfgang. Brummund could have created subplots around the employees, especially around Brother Wilde, who seemed to have serious issues with the Housefather. Likewise, Brummund could have studied Wolfgang's mother dilemmas, alternating scenes in the reformatory with scenes at home. Unfortunately, the director chose to waste time on pointless flashbacks with incestuous tones.It gets 5.

I only live a few miles away from Freistatt, Germany, and at least regionally the movie got some attention. "Freistatt" deals with a topic that is not often dealt with in movies, chose original locations for filming and lists some very able actors (Max Riemelt, Alexander Held) in its cast.There is no fluff or filler in this movie, no boredom coming up. But while it is a good "time piece" in the sense that it gives you a good idea what it was like in that particular time and situation, there is no plot that is strong enough to really hold the movie together.Ultimately, I would only recommend it to those who are curious about or have any connection to those failures of the education system that existed for way too long.

I saw this movie in a preview for teachers. It deals with a borstal in West Germany the late 1960ies. And basically every crass image that this subject might evoke from you, it's in this movie. Plus a few more. The protagonist, Wolfgang, is sent there because his mother has a new husband and wants him out of the way. Of course, the home is like a gulag, and Wolfgang is tortured every which way. After he is beaten up on his arrival by the bigger boys, another boy, Anton, offers him cookies for protection. Why? It doesn't work the other way round! Later, Anton steals a photograph of Wolfgang's mother and very publicly jacks off to it. Why, oh why? Who does that? A bit later, Wolfgang has an erotic dream about his own mother. What the? What's going on here? The boys are beaten, forced to do hard labour in the swamp, and starved. The sun never shines. One of the boys has a homosexual relationship with one of the minders. The headmaster constantly rides around on his horse as if he was one of the Southron slavekeepers in Django Unchained (the rest of the time he's pruning his vegetables like Hannibal Lecter on furlough). Then, when all hope is lost, another cliché arrives: The foxy headmaster's daughter. In another attempt to crassen up ("to crassen up" = "to make even more crass in order to compensate for storytelling") the plot, Wolfgang eventually almost rapes her.This is essentially an exploitation movie, without the fun.