Director: Philipp Jedicke (Austria, Germany). Year of Release: 2023
A woman with short peroxide hair is in a bridal shop is trying on a white dress. She thinks that the dress fits great, but there’s something wrong around the breasts. After chatting with the shop assistants, she leaves the shop in a t-shirt and shorts. Soon afterwards, we see the same woman in the same dress on an abandoned piece of empty land. She is sat behind a small drum kit – 4 snares, a bass drum and a couple of cymbals – bashing out a drum solo.
As far as I know, the woman doesn’t significantly feature in the film again, although this may just be down to me – I’m terrible at recognising faces. But this is not a film about her, it’s about the Vienna music scene, or at least the part of the scene which interests director Philipp Jedicke. Vienna Calling aspires to be less a documentary than a work of art. It is a series of often unconnected scenes, which sometimes feature musicians, and sometimes bits of Vienna.
The film contains a number of different sorts of scene. First there’s concert footage in a number of different settings, from a large concert hall to the end of a demo, from a seedy club to a Turkish wedding party. The music covers a large range of genres. Some bands are large and multi-instrumental, others just rappers shouting along to a backing track. Whatever, the quality is pretty high throughout, You’d do well to get a copy of the inevitable soundtrack.
In one performance, audience members enter the peep show booths of a porn cinema. In the background we see a poster pointing towards a Glory Hole (€5 for usage). As the audience look out of their booths, they see a man wearing rabbit ears sat on a rotating stage, singing and playing a guitar. This is not necessarily the strangest clip that we see, but it is very much in synch with a film which wants to promote its own weirdness.
Other scenes are interviews with the band members, or footage of them carrying out their daily work, or the work they did before they decided to try and make a living from music. We visit a cemetery, or watch of the artists, Der Nino aus Wien, having his hair cut into a pudding basin cut which I hope is meant ironically. Another singer is filmed at the end of a demo. An activist asks “why is the camera there? Who’s interested in this?” You might well ask.
Meanwhile, we catch der Gutlauniger (literally, the man in a good mood) in performances in a gold lamé suit. He carries out an extremely low level exercise régime with his trainer, much of it in an empty swimming pool. Out of his suit, he conducts interviews wearing a Sepultara T-shirt, and much less hair lacquer. Like many of the acts, you know that he’s not that serious while thinking that he must have some motivation to make so much effort.
We also see scenes which aspire towards music videos – some elegantly cut, others looking like they’ve been just flung together. Someone sings into an old fashioned telephone. A backing singer next to him lifts a similar phone and sings back. Other videos are more ambitious with an inexplicable preponderance of goats. The eerie backlighting makes you think that if someone releases this it might actually do pretty well.
All the interviewees speak in an impenetrable Austrian accent. When singer Voodoo Jürgens talks about moving to Italy, he asks: “who would understand me if I continue to sing in Viennese dialect?”. But take it from someone who has regularly struggled to understand Austrians, the accent is still there. Jürgens reminds me very much of The Piano has been Drinking, the cabaret group from Nord Rhein Westfalen who play Tom Waits songs in a heavy Cologne accent.
Esra und Enez Özmen, sibling members of the group Esrap are interviewed in the home of their Turkish parents. Their accents are a melting pot of different shades. Esra is one of the few women who is given much airspace in the film, but you wouldn’t mess with her. On stage, you see her as a powerful feminist and anti-racist rapper. At home, her parents proudly explain how she has learned her musicality from the more traditional Turkish music that they play at home.
As well as the musical scenes, we see different aspects of Vienna. A disproportionate number of scenes are filmed at the banks of the Danube. Some subterranean scenes bring to mind The Third Man. There is no actual footage from the Prater Gardens, home of the Ferris wheel scene, but the Prater is cited by a number of lyrics (including one which I’ve probably misremembered: “du gehts jeden Tag zum Prater, ich zum Psychiater” (you go every day to the Prater, I go to the psychologist).
Most of the artists we see must be unknown to most Wiener, let along anyone else, so I’m not going to name-drop them as if I know who they are. If that is what the film is about, it is expecting a tiny audience. Some German-speaking critics have complained that the most famous artists from Vienna aren’t featured. This is quite possibly true, but many of us would find it difficult to name any Viennese musician since Falco brought us Rock me Amadeus.
Vienna Calling is a dog’s dinner of a movie, but even dogs have to eat some time. It is an impressionistic film, which contains very little structure – like much of the music which it is showcasing. Director Philipp Jedicke has little to say about the music – nor do the artists themselves, there are no traditional talking head interviews. But maybe its better that way. Let the music speak for itself.
I found myself enjoying Vienna Calling a lot more than I thought I would. For a start, the music was first rate, bur it was more than that. The film managed to convey a mood which made you want to visit Vienna, visit its seedy bars and listen to its music. Sure, it looked unprofessional, but is that really the most important thing?
CinePhil 