"Der Bunker" or "The Bunker" is a German movie from 2015. The writer and director is Greek-German filmmaker Nikias Chryssos and I am kinda surprised how much awards attention his work here received. This film does not strike me as something that awards bodies may appreciate, but I am clearly wrong. Of course, the likes of the German Film Awards did not honor it, but it scored awards all over the planet, even in Mexico for example. And I am positively surprised by that as these 85 minutes were a pretty interesting watch, and certainly quite entertaining. You cannot categorize this film easily at all. It is a touch of drama, a touch of coming-of-age, a touch of comedy, a touch of thriller, a touch of horror and probably more. This is the story of a student who starts working as a teacher for a boy who lives in a bunker with his parents. These four are also all the cast members in here. All the action takes place in the bunker and only very rarely you see a shot of the snowed-in outside of the bunker. Civilization has clearly forgotten about them. The fact that this boy is played by an actor who is actually the second-oldest cast member here says a lot about the absurdity of the film. But it does so in a good way as it also helps in showing us how the movie never takes itself seriously. It is difficult to say whether the character is also intended to be around the age of 30 despite being the "son". There is one occasions when the teacher says he looks much older than 8 years, so maybe yes. But it's not important either. I believe the story here could have easily turned this film into a huge piece of ridiculous garbage, but the actors and the filmmaker are so good that it is actually working. This is not only thanks to Chryssos, but especially thanks to actor Daniel Fripan, who plays the boy, (admittedly the Angela Merkel haircut is helping too, and Oona von Maydell, who was absolutely brilliant in depicting the characters insanity apparently caused by an evil wound on her leg that makes her somewhat possessed. (And man was she hot. Absolute fetish material her character here.) Of course, Bukowski and Scheller were good too, they just did not have as much to work with as the other two, even if the former is probably playing the central character. The ending made me think of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" a bit with the way things turned out. Not sure if that was intended by the filmmaker, but it reminded me a lot of that. There was nothing in this film I really disliked apart from a couple moments here and there. For example, I did not like that the teacher also started sucking on the mother's breasts on one occasion. The only explanation I had for this scene was probably that it had to do with the evil spirit inside her. And the last shot with the student doing the work in the house for the parents was also a bit strange I think. It came out of nowhere and honestly, I expected the student to die after he was stabbed. But all in all, these minor flaws in here should not distract you from how good and atmospheric a film this was. It is closer to a ****/***** than to a **/*****. I certainly recommend the watch to everybody who likes subtle horror (and who despises splatter and gore) as much as I do. See it now!
Review of The Bunker
