Teenage Angst (2008) User Reviews (6)

Interesting premise, failed result

[marcuspessoa · 6/10 · 8 January 2012]

The movie seems to have some influence of "The Young Törless", Robert Musil's novel was adapted for the screen by Volker Schlöndorff. The theme is similar: in an elite school, a group of students think they are "beyond good and evil" and bully on of its members, in a way that resembles the fascism.

"Reject the moral" means to them: massive alcohol and drug abuse, and various forms of rape and torture.

Unfortunately, the movie don't develops its interesting premise. What we see is only a strong graphic content with obvious homo-erotic subtext.

It's a weird school, where there is only one teacher and few students, and they are mere adjuncts. The author failed to portray a real school environment.

Maybe the story would be better if there were more brain and less eye candy.

One hour of humiliation

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 2 August 2017]

"Teenage Angst" is a German thriller from 2008, so this one will have its 10th anniversary next year. The director is Thomas Stuber (recently very successful with "Herbert") and after some short film work, this his his very first full feature film, at slightly over 60 minutes (including credits a really short one though). Maybe that is the reason the film lacks in the story-telling department quite a bit. We have a group of four young men and we see what the "advantages" of their parents' wealth turned them into: sadists, criminals, masochists, indifferent followers, but the humanity is pretty much gone in all of these. Admittedly, the grown-up characters in here are not helping matters (i.e. the boys) either. Nonetheless the film delivers really as nothing but a story of shock value and humiliation. You don't care for any of the characters or their well-being really. In terms of the character study component, it is really an underwhelming outcome I must say. The young actors are nothing special either and I don't really see promise in them. Or perspective. For a decent and especially for a long career in the industry, they need to step things up. Same for the duo who wrote this. Then again, it's been almost 10 years since this came out, so here's hoping they managed to improve already. For daddy Schweighöfer all hope is lost though perhaps age-wise. Then again he probably isn't any worse in here than his equally untalented and horribly overrated son. This film offers almost nothing below the surface and I give it a thumbs-down. It's not a failure, but also miles away from being a good movie. I am glad it was this short. Not recommended. Oh yeah, final note: This film is also known as Spieltrieb and you should not mistake it for the other later title (by Gregor Schnitzler) with that name because that one is actually fairly decent.

Viewer Angst

[Suradit · 2/10 · 12 December 2014]

As another reviewer stated, the story idea had potential, but the production failed to deliver.

In the synopsis we're told that the setting is an elite border (boarding?) school where a group of four students form a clique. A "clique" would suggest that there was some effort to exclude others, but there didn't seem to be any others about the school to exclude.

Elite or otherwise, there was little evidence that it was actually even a school few students other than the main four, no teachers and no classes. And there was little to suggest that it was elite aside from the vague notion that the boys came from wealthy, privileged homes and that the school appeared to be in a derelict castle.

The only faculty member was a creepy, slovenly bearded creature whose main function was to give students breathalyzer tests & to rummage through their rooms and who became decidedly unhinged in his efforts to obtain a urine sample from one student. I was never quite clear whether he was meant to be the head of school, a counselor or a teacher or possibly all of the above since no one else was manning the establishment.

There was no evident reason why these four students would feel the urge to form a clique or why they would feel compelled to maintain it other than the fact there seemed no one else around with whom they could become friends. On a couple of occasions a few other boys were seen running, presumably as part of their physical education program, but otherwise the school and dormitory were eerily vacant.

The idea that our four characters had varying unfulfilled social needs (hardly what most people would think of as teenage angst) and that over time their relationships and behavior towards one another became progressively cruel, exploitative and sociopathic was never developed, it just happened. Left to their own devices and largely unsupervised, their little alliance supposedly went horribly wrong, in the style of The Lord of the Flies I suppose, but in the Lord of the Flies you observed the metamorphosis and saw things unravel. In this case it was just four incompatible, socially challenged boys maintaining a mini-fraternity for no apparent reason.

The idea that the one student who suffered the most from the association did so in the hope of finding acceptance and friendship was never convincing nor was the idea that they found enjoyment in drink and drugs.

The dramatic ending to this story was even more bizarre than all that preceded it, involving the creepy faculty member determined to obtain a urine sample. It had virtually no cause and effect relationship to the machinations of the "clique" and was largely irrelevant to the presumed point of the story.

Quite a disappointment.

This Film Could Have Been So Much Better

[jromanbaker · 7/10 · 2 December 2021]

This is a ' modern ' version of Robert Musil's ' The Confusions of Young Torless ' and it has plenty of Gothic trimmings to make you believe it could be set a century ago. The film is set near and in a castle which is an elite school for the very rich, and what seems to me only one master in control of a pack of teenage youths. We rarely see other than a handful of the pupils and they behave in a way that even Ludwig of Bavaria would have enjoyed. Two are very nasty indeed, and overact while a neutral youth called Konstantin looks on as they torture a strong faced, but pretty youth called Leibnitz ( yes, they all have these hyper important names hinting at literary depths and philosophy ) and of course they have a hiding place to indulge themselves. Visually it is good to look at and the director Thomas Stuber knows how to build up atmosphere ( forests and rivers and tapestried walls ) but despite the only hour long running time it very often seems slowly paced and the extremities of Sadism and Masochism hit the viewer in brief bursts, but are bearable to watch as they are to a certain extent coy in presentation. The actor who plays Konstantin has to strip naked but hides himself as he does so and despite the nudity which should be necessary if the director wanted to be faithful to the subject matter annoys. I thought of Pasolini and Stuber could have learnt from him that a colder, more explicit treatment would have been better for this brutal content. I failed to see much homo-eroticism in any of it, but dangling hints are offered here and there. What happens in the forest when Konstantin takes Leibnitz in his arms; neutral watcher clasping a perhaps too needy masochistic to him is a mystery. Time passes and they are still together on the forest floor and ambiguity hangs in the air and this sort of coyness in showing the reality of Sadistic/Masochistic content happens too often. Drug taking is explicit and Stuber shows us that very clearly. In my opinion the overheated performances should have been cooled down, and being a German film Fassbinder as well as the Italian Pasolini could have been better guides to Stuber's direction. But despite these criticisms I kind of liked the film for its attempt to tackle Musil's novel in a way that was relevant for the 21st Century. Konstantin ( played well by Franz Dinda ) is a perfect modern Torless, and he is far less ( dare I say ? ) hysterical than the other participators who want to go beyond good and evil. If viewers can find this film it is worth seeing and then please go away to read Robert Musil's far more explicit book.

Cut at half

[larapha · 3/10 · 15 October 2015]

Teenage Angst is a film I felt was cut by the half. OK, it's an European film, things are supposed to be guessed more than explained, but this was too much to me. So: spoiler alert! What was all that bashing of the guy meant for? It has some gay eroticism in itself, and that's why it's marked of gay interest, but why didn't he reacted at some point? Just to be part of a mini-fraternity? Too little to explain his behavior, after he was nearly drowned, isn't it? That's a film in which I would demand an explanation, as it's given in most American comfortable movies. The school itself is hardly convincing. Just some pals in classes with someone that seems to be the sole prof, director, adviser, etc. But so much lack of information p. me off.

Young director Stuber excels with explosive tale of pampered students who get out of hand

[Chris Knipp · 8/10 · 11 November 2009]

This accomplished hour-long first feature is set at a posh German boarding school. We know it's posh because it's in a dramatic mountain castle and there's a beautiful mountain lake; the photography shows a good eye, with a sense of what to show off and what not to reveal completely. The subject, after all, is something we never quite see -- not so much what's happening at any moment as the situation's growing potential for danger and violence. The scenes, often broken off abruptly, have an explosive, improvised feel that keeps you watching.

Four bad boys led by the bold, dominant Dyrbusch (Niklas Kohrt) form a kind of pact surrounding a nearby "dacha" hangout where they expound Nietschean fantasies and drink shots and snort crystal meth. Dyrbusch's second self is Bogatsch (Michael Ginsburg), who seems manifestly inferior, but brims over with sympathetic hostility and aggression. Konstantin (Franz Dinda) is just naive and curious. Von Leibnitz (Janusz Kocaj) is strange, needy, an outsider, but also brilliant, an aristocrat, perhaps of homoerotic appeal to the leaders with his soft looks and long hair. Though all four, drunk, after bathing nude, threaten a girl called Vaneska (Stephanie Schönfeld), with possible rape, Konstantin and Von Leibnitz have second thoughts and from then on a dangerous dynamic of conflict arises. Plainly two of the bad boys aren't bad enough to suit the other two. Von Leibnitz becomes the all-too-willing torture object of the two boldest and most psychopathic boys; Konstantin, having second thoughts, wants to opt out.

A big, paunchy, but nicely dressed teacher-mentor (Michael Schweighöfer) is the only authority figure seen. He tries by a show of ease and self confidence to mask the fact that among these moneyed delinquents he may not have the last word. Events do turn tragic and in an unexpected and ironic manner.

The story has familiar elements; the outline has strong echoes of 'Young Torless.' But the telling has a raw contemporary feel. There's a fresh sense of danger and near-hysteria about many scenes -- something tricky to create, and trickier to keep from overwhelming the narrative. Director Thomas Stuber, who was only 26 when he made this film but had six years of apprenticeship behind him, gets intense performances out of his actors. In some of the group sequences, especially the near-rape, you may forget anyone is acting, yet to balance that, the setup is classically cinematic. The economical editing maintains the nice balance between chaos and order. Stuber shows a lot of promise. The writing of Holger Jäckle is praiseworthy too.

'Teenage Angst' is a recent release by Picture This!, the indie distributor of mostly foreign coming of age and gay-related films (e.g. 'Garcon Stupide,' 'Come Undone,''Aimee and Jaguar,''Before the Fall') that as of Nov. 2009 has closed its doors after 13 years. 'Angst" and Angelina Maccarone's (2006, also German) 'Punish Me' ('Verfogt') are examples that Picture This! Is a niche loss that will be felt both by viewers and by the industry. This comes on top of the greater loss of pre-eminent foreign film distributor New Yorker Films, which shut down earlier this year after 44 years and was responsible for the US release of many foreign classics.