Only a handful of horror directors are true craftsmen when it comes to constructing fear out of celluloid, and Jorg Buttgereit is one of them. "Der Todesking" is an early, virtually plot less effort from the German auteur that follows a week in the life of a deadly chain letter. The film possesses a stream-of-consciousness style which strings together a series of random, nightmarish images (the sped-up decomposition of a corpse; castration; suicide) that rely on a coldly realistic tone to deliver chills. Additionally, the musical score is as hauntingly effective as anything Goblin composed for Dario Argento. Be warned, however--depending on your mood, "Der Todesking" might plunge you into a deep depression.
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powerfully oppressive
Today is a good day to die So are tomorrow and the day after!
"Der Todesking" is not exactly the type of film that makes you merry Jörg Buttgereit's second cult monument in a row, which is actually a lot better than the infamous "Nekromantik", exists of seven short episodes one for each day of the week revolving on unrelated people's suicides. In between these already very disturbing episodes, Buttgereit inserts truly horrifying images of a severely decomposing male corpse. The episodes aren't all equally powerful but, as a wholesome, "Der Todesking" is ranked quite high on the list of all-time most depressing art-house films. Particularly the episodes on Wednesday, involving a man explaining his sexual frustrations to a total stranger in the park, and the one of Sunday, focusing on a younger man molesting himself to dead, are extremely intense and devastating to observe. The added value of this film, or any other shockumenary like it, is debatable and I'm not even sure whether or not Buttgereit had any type of message to communicate here. There's the vague mentioning of an eerie chain letter that encourages its readers to commit suicide but mostly we remain uninformed about these people's motivations to end their lives so dramatically. Entirely unlike I expected, "Der Todesking" isn't exploitative or repulsively graphic! On the contrary actually, I never could have hoped Buttgereit would be so subtle and thoughtful regarding the portrayal of pure human misery. The Thursday episode is a perfect example of this, as it stylishly shows different viewpoints of a famous German bridge while the names, ages and occupations of persons who jumped off appear on the screen. The production values are inescapably poor and the editing often lacks professionalism, but this isn't what really counts in this type of cinema. The subject matter is strong and forcing us to contemplate about the less cheerful but also indispensable aspects of life. GREAT use of tragic music, too!
Typical for Jörg Buttgereit's work.
Jörg Buttgereit goes a bit too far with his movies and themes at times, even for my taste but his movies are always something special and hard to classify. They are artistically made, with also often deeper meaning to its themes. This movie is a perfect example of his work.
It's also really hard to label this movie. It's not really a movie with a story to it, in a sense of having a beginning, middle and end in it. It also doesn't have a main character but instead focuses on 7 different suicides and killings, on 7 different days.
All different stories are being told with lots of class, though some of them are of course more 'interesting' and realistic than the others. They are not necessarily connected but yet together they still tell a story. The movie doesn't feel disjointed at all. All different stories have a different feel to it and Buttgereit tells the story without hardly using any words (also typical for his style) but instead lets the images and obvious sensible emotions of the characters tell the entire story. It helps to make this movie an effective one to watch.
Again, the production values all aren't too high and this might be something that might scare off some people. It however helps for this particular movie to set the right tone and atmosphere for the entire movie and its dark, disturbing and depressing themes.
A Buttgereit movie that I 'enjoyed' watching.
7/10
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