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May 12, 2024

Film "Youth without God": Who pukes, gets point deduction!

Who is fat, is excluded. Team spirit is good? because there are points for it. Who makes mistakes, is worth less. There are pills for unpleasant feelings.

In such a world lives Zach, main character in the movie "Youth without God" (theatrical release 31 August). Zach - magnificently played by Jannis Niewöhner - belongs to the elite: He comes from rich parents, his body functions are top, and he is intelligent.

He lives secluded by the so-called benefit recipients who have no access to high-quality education, good jobs or beautiful apartments in this world. Every social class has its own sector? so the world stays in order.

Zach (Jannis Niewöhner) is not like the others: he quarrels with the system.

The camp: puking brings minus points

Zach is about to graduate and drives with his class to a camp in the mountains. There, students are tested for eligibility for Rowald University, an elite university that, in principle, educates people who rule the world.

Of course, everyone is keen to be admitted to this university and kneel down to vomit. Only that they refrain vomiting - because puke brings down points.

Zach with his excellent potential has very good chances for a license? If it were not for this mysterious diary he always writes in. Secrets are not welcome in Zach's world.

But the overseers at the camp can not ban this annoying quibble: Zach has a medical certificate that he is allowed to keep a diary because he recently lost his father and helped him with his mourning notes.

Zach's teacher (Fahri Yardim) also quarrels with the structures - but is already very deep in it.

Zach, the nerd: too much compassion

In truth, Zach has much more to do than grief. He does not get along with this world in which he lives. He suffers from the fact that people have to perform to be worth something. That not all get the same opportunities, but only the privileged can "bring it to something". And most of all he suffers from the fact that everyone is taking part in this whole shit - because they are afraid.

As his classmates ruffle his ass at the camp, Zach's diary continues to grapple with the cold and inhuman system that torments him - until one night he meets a girl who finally convinces him that he's in a world do not want to live from cold and pressure to perform ...

Gloomy thought experiment - or future vision?

The film, which is very freely based on the novel of the same name by the Austro-Hungarian writer Ödön von Horváth from 1937, is in a similar way as "1984" and "Brave New World" above all a thought experiment:

What does a society look like in which everything? even people - must fulfill a purpose? In which compassion and love are annoying because they distract us from functioning? In which the value of a human is measurable? namely at its performance potential? What does a society look like, and what does it make of people?

Titus (Jannik Schümann, left) does not care about his classmates. What is important to him? To be the best.

To ask these questions is quite close in our real world: HR departments are called Human Resources in many companies. If I lose my father, I usually have two days off until I have to work again. The perfect look is so important that people who are completely healthy can go under the knife. Education should be designed to prepare us optimally for working life.

And the result? Just a feeling ...

Even though "Jugend ohne Gott" does not really succeed in treating the questions that are touched on, really deeply, or at least stringently pursuing them, the film is thematically at least topical.

Otherwise, the film somehow conveys the certainty: Such a "youth without God" or - formulated more abstractly - a "society without humanity" will never exist.

In fact, most people like Zach: When someone falls down, they help. When they see someone being discriminated against, they feel it is injustice. If they have too much and others too little, they share.

As long as people shape the world, they can not be inhuman and cold because people are always human and somehow warm. For heaven's sake, we do not have to call it God - but in the end we can confidently trust in this indefinite goodness in man ...