6.6 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Tore, a young man involved with an underground Christian punk movement called the Jesus Freaks, falls in with a family curious to test his seemingly unwavering religious faith. As his trials become more and more extreme, Tore finds his capacity for love and resilience pushed to its limits and beyond. Inspired by true events.
Starring: Julius FeldmeierForeign | 100% |
Drama | 37% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
German: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Digital copy (as download)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Nothing Bad Can Happen (hereafter, "NBCH") is the debut feature by German writer/director Katrin Gebbe, whose original title was Tore Tanzt (literally, "Tore Dances"). It debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2013, where it was accepted for screening after the official schedule had already been announced, and where the film was both booed and cheered. It's the kind of work to which viewers invariably have a strong reaction, and even those who respond favorably aren't necessarily eager to repeat the experience. You can easily finish the film without being certain whether you liked or loathed it, but either way you're likely to find scenes seeping back into your memory days after the experience, refusing to go away. Gebbe created "NBCH" from two sources. The first was a newspaper account of a terrible incident involving the mistreatment of a young man, which is why the film is said to be "inspired by true events". (According to Gebbe, the brutality of the real story was much worse than what she portrayed in NBCH.) The second source was Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot, the hero of which is a simple and devout soul who attempts to live like Jesus in the modern world, with disastrous results. Gebbe combined these two notions into a story that raises difficult questions about the nature of good and evil—but that's really the wrong way to put it. Gebbe doesn't "raise questions" so much as shove the viewer's face into an experience of good and evil that some will simply find too unpleasant (or perhaps contrived) to want to endure. Whatever your reaction, Gebbe provides no easy answers. As powerful an experience as NBCH is, you have to process it for yourself.
Nothing Bad Can Happen was shot by Moritz Schultheiß, whose credits are mostly low-budget horror fare like Rammbock: Berlin Undead. It's an appropriate match, since NBCH has the pacing and tense atmosphere of a horror film. According to IMDb, the film was photographed with a Red One MX, which is consistent with the image on Drafthouse/Cinedigm's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, which was presumably sourced from digital files. The image is clean, sharp and detailed, with solid blacks and a naturalistic color palette that is consistent with the film's documentary style. Much of the photography is handheld, although director Gebbe avoids the lurching style that has come to be known as "shaky cam". She simply follows Tore in and out of real locations, many of them mundane, a few of them quite the opposite. Because the camera is so frequently in motion, the disc's high average bitrate of 31.96 Mbps is a welcome use of the available digital real estate, even if good results could have been achieved with less bandwidth, because the material was digitally acquired. If the space is there, why not use it?
NBCH's 5.1 soundtrack (in German with optional English subtitles) is encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA, and it's a powerful experience. Gebbe asked composer Peter Folk to supply an unconventional score, and Folk responded with music that could easily be mistaken for sound effects: deep bass notes that could signal a spiritual awakening from above (or possibly a threat from below), unconventional and unmelodic phrases that seem to arise out of Tore's internal dialogue, and sustained notes that blend into the background of the action on screen. It's an ideal film score, because it contributes to NBCH's total impact without calling attention to itself. At the end, you may not even realize there was music. My German is good enough to judge that the dialogue is clearly reproduced, and the track draws a clear sonic distinction between Tore's internal thoughts and the lines that are spoken aloud to other characters. The essential sounds of the environment are carefully blended into the mix; a standout is the club scene that is part punk dance, part sermon.
On its technical merits, I have no hesitation recommending NBCH. Drafthouse produces excellent discs, and this one is no exception. As a film, though, NBCH is one to be approached with caution. It is a startling and original work, but it is definitely not a blind buy. Enter at your own risk.
El Club
2015
Tras el cristal
1986
Special Edition
1981
オーディション | Ôdishon | Special Edition
1999
I ragazzi del massacro
1969
檻の中の妖精 / Ori no naka no yôsei
1977
Goto, l'île d'amour
1969
Naked Massacre / Die Hinrichtung
1976
Guai guai guai guaiwu!
2017
2008
2015
2017
L'éden et après
1970
Kladivo na čarodějnice / Witches' Hammer / The Witch Hunt
1969
Ich seh, Ich seh
2014
Standard Edition
1971
2020
Al otro lado del espejo / The Obscene Mirror / Le miroir obscène
1973
Los sin nombre
1999
少年的你 / Shǎo nián de nǐ
2019