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"O.K."

Regie:
Michael Verhoeven
Drehbuch:
Volker Vogeler nach Finn Soeborg
Kamera:
Heinz Hölscher
Schnitt:
Jane Sperr
Besetzung:

Gila von Weitershausen, Hannelore Elsner,
Karl Dall, Henry van Lyck, Christof Wackernagel

”o.k.” won its place in German film history as the film that broke up the 1970 Berlin Film Festival. The official German entry was so misunderstood by some American politicians that they forced the festival to be stopped.

The film deals with an incident that occured during the Vietnam War, and 19 years later inspired Brian De Palma’s”Casualties Of War”. A Vietnamese girl is raped by Americansoldiers. One GI refuses to go along, but cannot help the girl. When he reports the incident, his colleagues appeal to his solidarity and give him the cold shoulder. Charges are not followed up, and during a later investigation, countless mitigating circumstances are uncovered.

Verhoeven was not trying to suggest that the crime was committed by the Americans. He simply wanted to show what actually happened. About the music he said,”It wasn’t a classicfilm score we wanted, to underscore the emotions. I wanted to avoid anything which could corrupt the message and generate artificial suspense. I wanted a situation like a storyteller, always accompanied by the same music.” And so the same 20 second piece of music is played more than a dozen times whenever a new chapter in the story begins, a kind of music between the acts, or meditative music during a passion play, which seems to become more threatening when accompanying scenes which increase in brutality.

(Tip of the hat to N.J. Schneider: Handbuch der Filmmusik)

 

 

© 2004 IMPROVED SOUND LIMITED