„Der Samurai“ by Till Kleinert at Tribeca Film Festival 2014

… and wins both the jury award AND the award of the youth jury at Festival Mauvais Genre in Tours, the Méliès d’Argent for Best European Fantastic Film at Imagine: Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival and the Jury Award for Best Feature at Fantaspoa in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

 

The unclassifiable German movie “Der Samurai,” written and directed by Till Kleinert, wraps you up in its strangeness. A young, no-fun village policeman (Michel Diercks), investigating sightings of a wolf, encounters something else altogether: a human, with bare feet and long blond hair, dressed in a white slip and wielding a samurai sword.
Mr. Kleinert depicts a spooky, melancholy, bloody dance of attraction and repulsion between the cop and the feral warrior, in which the katana’s blade is put to frequent use. Something is being said about conformism, and about gender roles, but the metaphors don’t get in the way of enjoying the eerie melodrama.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/18/movies/zombeavers-and-other-midnight-offerings-at-tribeca-festival.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=2