Nekromantik
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In the infamous German underground film Nekromantik 2 (Jörg Buttgereit, 1988), female sexual desire manifests itself in the perverse arena of necrophilia.In 1987, German art-house director Jorg Buttgereit unleashed "Nekromantik" on an unsuspecting festival circuit provoking waves of outrage and the film to be banned in several countries, including his own. Meanwhile, the film was gaining a rabid cult following from fans of depraved and trash cinema who clamored for a sequel. In 1991 Buttgereit submitted to the demands of the underground and filmed Nekromantik 2, a film so depraved and dangerous in its insinuations it was actually seized by German authorities folowing its premiere back in 1991. Having seen the original Nekromantik several years ago, I never bothered trying to find the sequel due to the profound unease the first film had left on me. Given Barrel entertainment's recent packaging of Nekromantik 2 in a 2-disc deluxe edition, curiosity got the best of me and I knew I had to give it a try.
Nekromantik 2 opens up with a flashback of the climactic scene of the first film, where Rob commits suicide. That scene is replayed in all its glory, and it remains quite the shocker. Meanwhile, a young single lady living in Berlin (the gorgeous Monika M.) has been reading several newspaper clippings about Rob's suicide and decides to dig up his body from the morgue. She drags the corpse back to her place, making love to it on a regular basis and lavishing all of her attentions on it. Unil one day she meets a guy named Mark, a reclusive type who earns his life dubbing adult films. As their romance blossoms, Monika's anguish over her having to choose between her two lovers escalates. Monika's torment and final "decision" leads to one of the most shocking climaxes ever put on film, a scene of bodily violation so intense that I found it even more shocking than the one in "Cuting Moments" and perhaps even Nacho Cerda's "Aftermath".
Nekromantik 2 has much of the same art-house feel that the first one does but on a noticeably higher budget. Many scenes of necromancy are played in a slow-motion dream-like haze with a beautiful piano score in the background. This technique works quite well in decreasing viewer disgust, almost convincing the viewer that loving the dead can be...well, beautiful. Sometimes, however, I found the artistic touches to be a little too forceful. In one scene, the camera zooms in on a snail as we watch it inch by inch crawling across a tombstone in the graveyard. The scene is well done but one has to wonder what the point of it really is. Most pretentious of all is the inclusion of a short and utterly strange black and white film about two people discussing the evolution of birds. While watching this drawn-out scene, I could practically imagine Buttgereit frantically yelling in his director's chair "ART! ART!".
There was something strangely appealing about watching Rob, the jilted suicidal wanker of the first film, finally finding true love as a corpse. I also liked the character of Mark. Although the guy earns his living dubbing adult films, he might be the only Buttgereitt character ever to not come across as a degenerate sicko but instead is a warm, caring soul who believes in true love. Even through some of the glitches, I couldn't help but feel that I was witnessing the work of a truly gifted artist. The problem with the Nekromantik films though is that they're such sick cinematic puppies that lavishing too high praise could be misinterpreted by others as tantamount to endorsing necromancy, cat-bashing, rabbit-skinning and seal clubbing. Although I believe Buttgereitt went a little too far by including real-life seal autopsy footage in the film, I still admire his unwillingness to tone down his style in the face of the huge protest his films have garnered in his country.
The second disc is packed with extra features such as theatrical trailers for all of Butgereitt's films, interviews with cast and crew, the amazing musical scores to both Nekromantik films and 25-minutes of behind-the-scenes footage where Buttgereitt and crew explain in fascinating detail how they created the corpse and managed to make it look so authentic. --Matt King via amazon.com
NEKRomantik is a German movie by Jorg Buttgereit made in 1987. The story is about Rob (Daktari Lorenz) and his girlfriend (Beatrice Manowski) who share the same interest: corpses. Rob works in Joe’s Street-Cleaning Agency, which removes dead bodies from the street. This job gives Rob the chance to bring the corpses to his home where he and his girlfriend have sex with them. Not Everything goes well and Rob is fired from his job and rejected by his girlfriend;things go downhill from there. This frequently controversial movie (i.e. banned in Great Britain) has become a cult film over the years due to it's transgressive subject matter (necrophilia) and audacious imagery.
There is also a sequel, NEKRomantik II. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nekromantik [Mar 2005]
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