What Does A Pain In The Jaw Mean

(Theater Review)

Adopted

Adopted was in the sixth Zurich Film Festival shown.

Content:

Ordinary Adoption Agencies, it might look like this, see that by white, western families catalogs with pictures of black African children. But there is another way! The organization ADOPTED turns the tables by offering lonely, let the local society weary West Europeans the opportunity to adopt from an African family.
The film portrays the fate of Ludger, Gisela and Thelma, who open from Germany to live with three different families in Ghana. While the actor Ludger there hopes to find the true happiness of life, the pensioner is Gisela since the death of her husband alone and left without prospects in life. Thelma the other hand, is originally from Iceland, has nothing of material values and want to know mainly people from all over the world. If the find three, they are looking for?

criticism

The stakes of Adopted certainly something ironic. Without doubt, the choice of the title and the advertising poster is designed to attract through the "One upside" principle attention. Finally, Gudrun F. Widlok seems director, who led the project along with Rouven kingdom to have the right to trigger the audience as possible in-depth reflection on the relationship of the two cultures. Provides the basis of this provocative question of whether the personal happiness is not to find more closely linked in the social life of African village than in the isolated town houses of the West.

The biggest danger here is that it gives itself as a Western viewer the romantic and idealized vision of African society. At the beginning of the film made in this regard also rather one-sided and nourishes these more subjective images, instead of them the unvarnished Reality oppose. Self-reflection is certainly present, as when Ludger noticed that there is a sign of fastidiousness actually when we voluntarily give up our affluent life to live in poverty want.

The best part Adopted is the immediacy with which the camera puts us in the action. As a viewer one is amazingly close to it to the protagonists understand their motives and feel with them. How do they all have at first more or less large start-up problems, so you feel as a viewer to know a stranger in the new environment and learns the adoptive families for the first time and appreciate. Here are the three stories, in reality not at the same time took place, cut side by side and cleverly woven into a diverse and exciting overall picture. Despite the fact that it was filmed with small and not of outstanding quality camcorders, also creates an almost palpable atmosphere of the village and town life in Ghana. It is strengthened by the contrast to the images of Germany, which will be shown at the beginning. Even the music is making a remarkable contribution to generate atmosphere.

When one or other audiences may already harbor while the film is doubt whether the represented organization actually exists in reality or whether this is more a kind of Mockumentary is. Left the protagonists really stay home with the intention of forever in Ghana? Such assumptions are at least not entirely misguided, since the idea originally started as an art project and actually took only later to real forms. But that also does not work. It's much closer to the utopia that the viewer can imagine himself at least for a moment, here and now give up everything and be by adopting an African family. This succeeds the movie impressive.

about 7 out of 10