Freakstars 3000 (2004)

 

Director: Christoph Schlingensief

Screenplay: Christoph Schlingensief

Cast: Werner Brecht, Susanne Bredehöft, Ilse Garzaner, Mario Garzaner, Horst Gelonneck, Kerstin Graßmann, Irm Hermann, Brigitte Kausch, Christoph Schlingensief, Helga Stöwhase and Achim von Paczensky

Ephemeral Waves

 

But first, "How does the bath tub lift work?"

After his cinematic career, Christoph Schlingensief would transition to public events and live performances in his desire to provoke the German populous. In a review of United Trash (1996), I mentioned the infamous “Please Love Austria – First Austrian Coalition Week” stunt, involving allowing members of the public to vote asylum seekers out in a Big Brother scenario, all in mind to a far right group gaining political traction in the Austrian government at the time of that stunt. Whilst not the most provocative of these, especially in mind to the one just mentioned, Freakstars 3000 on the surface is definitely a work that could become tasteless even if in itself a provocative concept.

Freakstars, originally a television series immediately sets itself up as a curious film, neither documentary nor fictional film, begin both with a tribute with one of its participants Werner Brecht but also commenting that it had actors abused and made to act as disabled. Then an animated credit sequence appear with light hearted music, and thus begins a talent competition pastiching the likes of American Idol, which would have been in their first boom in popularity, only with the participants cast with disabled people. The project from Schlingensief was clearly meant as a provocation in terms of forcing people to think of people with disabilities (mental or physical) outside an alienating comfort zone of patronisation, like Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier's The Idiots (1998). There are added provocations in this film, least this compiled production I watched, which would have been deliberately targeting the German audience; one such example, which I would not be surprised Christoph Schlingensief choose on purpose, is the iconography of a clamp for people's names and in the animated title sequence, which caused me to wonder if that was a reference to eugenics and measuring skulls.

The actual project, in terms of auditions and working with people with disabilities, is carefully done and ultimately more soft hearted than that initial concept and references suggest. Schlingensief does not look down on the people involved, all the audition sequences jovial and with applause as we see the first rounds a group gathering together in a playful singing or talent competition. The challenge is the presentation - rough early digital and TV aesthetic around the taboo of physical or tangible disability, jamming it into a middle class German viewer's eye. Truthfully, Freakstars 3000 is a failure because even the production felt this was not really enough, and that the film even less than eighty minutes goes onto tangents most of the time away from the premise. Previewing its later content, you briefly wonder if that is actually Angela Merkel on one of Freakstar's spin-offs, the future chancellor of Germany from 2005 in a mock political show, looking deeply uncomfortable as a disabled older man chews on the cud of political rot. Instead they are two of the participants of the show, one of them Horst one of the MVPs as an older man, playing a figure next to Kerstin, an older woman with schizophrenia playing Merkel, reducing German politics down to shouting figures whilst Horst thankfully points out the phrase "Hitler is a Nazi pig!" is one we need to say, or shout as he does, to remind outselves of that fact more often.

The film has tangents, from political shows to parodies of those old television advertisements that used to sell CD compilations, something I gained nostalgia for, as well as amusement that Germany had these ads too and that the fictional releases here have an exaggerated amount of discs per set, Horst's getting 555 discs for his music. It is, truthfully, somewhat of a fangless production in terms of what it is meant to be getting at. Ultimately, it's nice amused air to itself is sweet, as the denizens involved with this talent competition never seem mocked and insulted, even getting into fictitious scenarios such an abrupt (and frankly pointless) hostage sequence. There is however also a sense of the project in its entirety, if this footage compiled is the best of it, never really got to something meaningful, beyond the initial provocation of forcing the viewer to view people with disabilities. There are eventually quite a few tangents, and for everyone that is amusing, such as a home shopping spin-off, where a hand cranked mixed is proved useless, by the final act it starts to dwindle. When you get to the final candidates and a band, the talent show aesthetic is dropped in favour of a fictitious narrative, including one of the members Werner Brecht having a health scare, and a final performance with them as a free jazz band which never really gets to a point.

It evoked Young@Heart (2007), a quasi-documentary of a group of singers all over seventy, which was attempting to deal with issues of mortality and has vaguely clung to me, least for enforcing a fascinating with Talking Heads with a specific cover of Road to Nowhere, but was ultimately soon-to-be-forgotten work which never really stood out, wanting to warm fuzzy feeling of pleasantness which is always nice, but dissipates like a puddle in the sun quickly without substantial meaning added to it.. The only time the work gets mean to the competitors is the rejection of those who failed to get through to the next round, taken from the likes of American Idol, and even that here is softened considerably, even in one case with one competitor playfully wrestling the director Schlingensief on the ground restaged as a confrontation.  There is nearly a nod to the point presumed for this show, a jab at reality television and talent shows' cruelty as much as tackling disability, when a gong is used in a round to start the performances, evoking the immensely popular American show The Gong Show, but that never goes anywhere. Likely, with clear emotional sweetness, Schlingensief himself likely never wanted to be cruel to anyone who participated.

And they stand out, between Horst and Mario, the scene stealer with his singing voice and a surprising talent behind the drum kit, or Andrea a the AC/DC fan unlikely to work within a free jazz band, an entire cast of real people here full of charisma and energy. There is also something, even if obvious, pointed to reducing political parties, whether nationalist and anti-Semitic, or even a figure like Angela Merkel, into shouting caricatures, and it is poignant, especially to the references to Nazis, that it is disabled people playing them, an emphasis knowing that tragically the Nazis' view of disability were inhumane. Thankfully, they became the source for said disabled people long after they are gone to be taken the piss out of.

Sadly, Freakstars 3000 eventually loses momentum, losing focus among its various tangents and the emphasis on fake drama, even if the latter is a point to jab at reality television. Speaking as someone with autism, a learning disability, I say ahead of time I cannot speak with everyone who has a disability when it comes to gauging the film, but it definitely becomes a lighter hearted work which really never goes into true provocation. Von Trier's The Idiots, for example, was a fictional black comedy of people faking disability as a band of outsiders, likely to become offensive were it not, for me, a sense of it still being entirely on the side of disabled people. That film, part of von Trier's Dogma 95 era, really hit powerful points, especially when real people with disabilities are brought in, and those in these outsiders are forced to show either their empathy or their biases, and that it was a provocation of forcing one to think of severe disability and as a subversive nature to this within "normalised" society. Contrary, if this was considered in poor taste, it says a lot to how complacent German culture was at the time that Freakstars 3000 was mad. Milder forms of transgression, whilst useful to help built conversation, can however be much more focus than this, among many of this time for the director including a parody of the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. It does feel tame, which could both be a sad state of myself to react this way, or truthfully that talking of disability requires more than a warm blanket sensation that this ultimately becomes, especially as coming from United Trash (1996), this is tonally a huge softening of the image of Christoph Schlingensief but also far less ambitious in terms of production and imagination in transgression.

The Real Cancun (2003)

Director: Rick de Oliveira

Screenplay: Brian Caldirola

Cast: Benjamin "Fletch" Fletcher; Nicole Frilot; Roxanne Frilot; David Ingber; Jeremy Jazwinski; Amber Madison; Paul Malbry; Marquita "Skye" Marshall; Laura Ramsey; Matthew Slenske; Alan Taylor; Heidi Vance; Casey Weeks; Sarah Wilkins; Jorell Washington; Adam Miller

Ephemeral Waves

Ephemeral Waves is for everything, from big films to scrapping at the back of the DVD rental shelf, all that exists in this strange world of moving images. Today, a curiosity in Reality TV's attempt at dominating the theatrical box office...

To my surprise, this was released by New Line Cinema, a detail I might have merely forgotten finally getting to this obscurity, but nowadays provides a perverse delight upon realising this, with their logo represented as a necklace above a faceless bikini bust on the DVD menu just cementing their claim over this project. Never was there a studio, even when the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise made them a lot of money and the Lords of the Rings trilogy bolstered them to a respectable award winning company, which indulged in projects that are strange to hear of or eventually killed them, as many were not financial successes in the slightest. This particular project is neither fiction nor a documentary, but a "reality" film produced with Bunim/Murray Productions, the creators of the early reality television show The Real World and Keeping Up with the Kardashians. "Screenwriter" Brian Caldirola worked on The Simple Life (2003-7), a multi season reality show where Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie slummed it as socialites put into the real working world. So yes, this is the kind of film that was ahead of its time, would have induced fear in critics when it was first made, and yet flopped at the box office.

Released only a month after principal photography, this cast a group of young adults and films them in scripted events at a spring break event in Cancun, Mexico. In the current day, since it was birthed fully into the 2000s, reality TV is everywhere but, not watching television on a regular basis since my early twenties, it is a culturally alien format to me when it is all intrusive for anyone else. Part of The Real Cancun, where we see a wet t-shirt competition to massive drinking sessions, are caught as transpired, but it would be delusional to not see that the editing and how the footage is constructed is also manufactured.

It begins with the casting interviews three weeks earlier. The cast for the most part are, honestly, indistinguishable from each other with a few exceptions. Two guys, buddies and played as a comedy duo, stand out with having wisecracks before one will be attracted to a girl nicknamed "Skye", where the relationship will not necessarily be successful. There are a pair of male and female friends who have a clear chemistry which creates tension between them. There is a pair of female twins whose brazenness makes them stand out. And there is Alex, who manages to become the most interesting figure from being the awkward nerd in the midst of this group. Then we get to Cancun, where barring the natural wildlife we never see any of the culture of, the only indication of Mexican culture we ever see being a mariachi band hired to wake up everyone. As a result, it does feel like a Mexican coastal town has been invaded by a mass of Americans with the intentions of drinking, fucking and twerking before leaving a mess to clean up afterwards.

In terms of an actual plot, there really isn't one. Reality TV usually follows some major plot or a series of events for dramatic tension, emphasised with extensive editing and didactic music cues which are meant to keep a viewer distracted like a cat with a toy. The Real Cancun, despite its structure, is a prototype of this with many of these details not existing here. The little plots I have mentioned - the will-they-won't-they of the male and female friends, the romance with Skye that will go nowhere - never progress to anything. The only aspect which does grow significantly is Alex, who is a nerdy guy who never drinks, causing one to wonder how someone who practices straight edge philosophy (i.e. no drugs or alcohol) would handle being there, getting out of his shell eventually. Partially it's awesome, because he enters a male "Hot Bod" competition where he dances in a thong, only to win it over more hunky muscular men out of charisma and bravery, getting the interest of many ladies in Cancun as a result. However he is also peer pressured to drink by everyone, which is uncomfortable in the modern day, a difference between the courage to do a shot with knowledge of one's limits, and having an arm bent and being forced to do a tequila salt lick off as a woman's bust even if he's into that.

Beyond this, not much happens and no one here is particularly interesting. This is without any malice to the cast either. Barring some obnoxious bro-speak about women in a gym, everyone is naive and has not really thought about anything meaningful even about the art of partying. Even in the DVD extra about the premiere screening, one of the guys in that gym scene feels embarrassed about the talk but defends it as male speak, which is telling about human behaviour as is Alex being pushed into drinking because it makes the guys especially uncomfortable he stands out like a sore thumb. This is a group without any real sense of individualism, barring Alex, so it feels even pointless to use names as no one really stands out. The only person who did in real life was Laura Ramsey, who got a small career in film and television into the 2010s.

There is no progressive or melodramatic turn in The Real Cancun, just a vague world of partying which is barely covered. The most dynamic scene is a girl getting a jellyfish sting from an above-water bungee jump, which involves a trite attempt at replicating the intense pre-attack mood of Jaws (1975) with a mere single jellyfish and a terrible music cue, and a romance sparking for her with the guy willing to pee in a cup behind a wall and pour the fresh urine on the wound to heal it. It is also, in a time where amateur porn flourished afterwards and covered many college dorm parties as their subject, completely tame as a film nowadays. The sex when it happens takes place under bed sheets, the more alarming thing that they were happy to have secret cameras in the bedrooms able to film it in the dark. This becomes less a proud Dionysius rampage of free libido and the power of wine, but a lame corporate created voyeurism.

In the time that transpires, many of the major events are in the middle of the film, like the wet t-shirt scene or Alex's triumph, leaving The Real Cancun to dwindle in momentum when it gets to the Spring Break celebrations winding down. Even a potential lasting romance introduced by the end feels like an afterthought, the result as it stands ahead of its time in context, but a flat production which does not fully commit to its promise. It also becomes another example which causes me to ask about New Line Cinema and how they managed to sustain themselves as long as they did. Between this, the notoriety of The Island of Doctor Moreau (1996) and various bizarre projects they yet managed to survive in the late 2000s until The Golden Compass (2007) has been said to have finished them.

If I had ever had the chance to see this film in an American cinema at the time, I would have gone but just out of curiosity of who went to it, as it only grossed $5.3 million from a budget of $7.5 million¹, and how they reacted to it. The best symbolic way to describe The Real Cancun is to compare it to its own soundtrack, one foot in the new trends but also very much to be subsumed in its time. Surprisingly there is no nu-metal outside the DVD extras, where it is inexplicably scoring a full version of the wet t-shirt contest, as apparently there is nothing more erotic than down tuned guitar riffs and post-Taproot angst lyrics. That genre would soon vanish as a "New Wave of American Heavy Metal" came about and the mainstream took an interest in other music.

Beyond this, it is a time capsule of the era, as whilst there are song from the likes of Gorrillaz and Basement Jaxx on the soundtrack, there are songs by bands like Simple Plan, pop punk that would soon morph into the emo grew whilst Green Day, who helped popularise this type of music, got serious and released the huge hit album American Idiot a year later in 2004. The growth of pop rap and RnB was present but barely touched upon, befittingly represented in the fact that the closest thing to any of it is very sexually suggestive songs and Snoop Dogg performing in concert, a scene only a few minutes long that it qualifies as a cameo, long before he ever considered reggae or a Gospel album. The world depicted here, the trends and habits of the young adults here, changed eventually, and especially so a decade later when you consider most of the people starring in this like Alex are approaching their forties and may have reflected back on this time in thought. Likewise, reality television would shift and change, evolving as it went along for new trends. Bunim/Murray Productions did not stop working back in television when this failed, whilst New Line Cinema has not survived the 2000s. The Real Cancun as a historical document is interesting, but like a really bland song from that era that no one bought, it's not particularly memorable.   

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1) Box Office Mojo