DOKUARTS
Zeughauskino Berlin
10.-27. Oktober 2019

Matthias Dell

Matthias Dell works as a critic on film. He freelances for Deutschlandradio, Zeit.de (with a weekly column on the German crime show "Tatort"), Cargo, spiegel.de. His publications include "'Herrlich inkorrekt'. Die Thiel-Boerne-Tatorte" (Bertz+Fischer, 2012), "Über Thomas Heise" (Vorwerk 8, 2014, w/ S. Rothöhler), "Duisburg – Düsterburg. Werner Ruzicka im Gespräch" (Verbrecher, 2018, w/ S. Rothöhler).

They Just Wanna Play

"Lord of the Toys" by Pablo Ben Yakov and André Krummel is a controversial documentary about an outfit of right-wing YouTubers in Dresden, struggling in an explosive mélange of forlorness, aggression and underpaid labor. Last year, the film won an award at the documentary film festival DOK in Leipzig despite continuing accusations that it would convey ideas and ultimately lend support to proponents of the (New) Right. The jury praised the film precisely for its apparent renunciation of an overtly didactic point of view. However, between blatantly “pointing the finger“ and an analytical approach trying to put things into a perspective, lies the realm of nuances. And it is precisely this space in between defined by nuances, that I seek to explore in my talk.
Using sequences and reference material from other documentaries, in this short lecture, I will elaborate on Lord of the Toys focussing on the question of nuances in representation; what kind of cinematic resources did the filmmakers use to portray their protagonists? What exactly do their choices tell us about this filmic document in political terms?