AIFF 2013: Oh Boy

Oh Boy is a small German film directed by Jan Ole Gerster and starring a wonderful Tom Schilling. It is shot in black 'n' white and that makes it the fourth (!) black 'n' white film that I've watched at this year's Athens Film Festival.

 

     In today's Berlin, young Niko (Tom Schilling) is a law school drop-out who lives only by cashing his father's monthly cheques. The film starts with him breaking up with his girlfriend and then moving to a different house where he has to face a nosy neighbour. He then starts wandering all around the city trying to find things to do. This is his life now. Wandering and doing nothing but surviving yet another day.
      What starts to move him a little further however, is his encounter with two people: a psychologist who sees him because Niko got a ticket for drinking and driving and tells him that he cannot take his driving license back yet and his father who decides to stop providing for him so that Niko will take some responsibilities in his life.
     Niko meets a lot of people during the day and each and everyone makes him realise that this isn't a right way to live. One has to escape the sentiment of loneliness and start finding his place in this world. Niko, being in his late-20s-early-30s, might be feeling lost and may not know what to do with his life - and let's face it, who knows nowadays?- but he has to grow up, he has to come in terms with his feelings and he must do something else but simply survive.

     This is an alternate Frances Ha that is set in Berlin and has a male protagonist but we can easily see that the feeling of loneliness and the agony of what one has to do in order to be happy is universal and everyone in this world worries about it one way or another.
        Comedic at times but ending with a bittersweet sentiment, Oh Boy is a black 'n' white fresh view of contemporary Berlin and a great debut film for Jan Ole Gerster.

Share on Google Plus