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Der Todesking

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    Ian Jane
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  • Der Todesking



    Released by: Cult Epics
    Released on: June 9th, 2015.
    Director: Jorge Buttgereit
    Cast: Nicolas Petche, Hermann Kopp
    Year: 1990
    Purchase From Amazon

    The Movies:

    Made in between his two infamous Nekromantik films, Jorge Buttgereit's 1990 film Der Todesking (which translates to The Death King) isn't as well-known as those more infamous pictures but it's definitely one that his fans should appreciate. The concept behind the film is as morbid as you'd expect - here Buttgereit shows us seven different takes on death, more often than not by suicide, intercut with scenes of a corpse rapidly decaying. It's all done with the bizarre and melancholic arthouse style that is the director's trademark and, as is his way, it leaves very little to the imagination.

    There's not a whole lot here in terms of plot, we get one vignette for each of the seven days of the week. It's hard to say too much about each vignette without spoiling it but let it suffice to say that this is done more in the style of a low budget Ingmar Bergman than in the low budget gore film sense that you might expect. Buttgereit's fascination with death and with how it can and does affect what's left behind after the spirit does or does not pass onto the great beyond is made obvious here in the scenes where the corpse rots. The effects in these sequences are as icky as you could hope for, completely with dissolving innards and maggots aplenty, and they're quite effective for a movie that was (at times quite obviously) made with a very modest budget. So too are the effects featured in the chapters that make up the movie - there's enough here to appeal to gorehounds, but it moves slowly, deliberately and it tends to focus less on splatter than on the reasons each character finds death.

    Death is often depicted in the movie as a release, and there's a certain reverence to the way that each death in the film is shown. Again, we can go back to the rotting corpse where it's made very clear that, yes, this person has died - but while we watch that corpse rot we see how it begets new life, even if that new life is a horde of maggots feasting on what's left of the rancid flesh hanging off of the bones. Cheery stuff this is not, but there's a more obvious artistic intent behind it than in the film's Buttgereit mad prior.

    There isn't a lot of dialogue here. Most of the vignettes play out with very little in the way of spoken words or narration. There are exceptions of course, but Buttgereit seems intent with this picture to let the visuals to the talking in place of the performers. This means that most of the cast members get their work across not through conversation but through body language and a sense of movement. For the most part, it not only works but it works well. That said, the visuals are what speak the loudest. Buttgereit does not sugar coat things, death is shown as the inevitable reality that we all know it is, able to reduce grown men to mere children when faced with it and something that will touch all of us no matter how long or short a period of time we spend on this planet. It's a grim film, at least on the surface, but the regeneration aspect that is very obviously a key part of what the director is trying to focus on, keeps the film from ever getting to be too much. It's not nearly as gory as his other pictures and while it does contain its fair share of unpleasant imagery, Der Todesking shows a far more mature and talented filmmaker at work than the more notorious entries in the director's catalogue are able to.

    Video/Audio/Extras:

    Der Todesking arrives on Blu-ray in its proper fullframe aspect ratio in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer taken from the original 16mm negative. This is, all things considered, a pretty solid transfer. It offers up a substantial improvement over past releases (it never did get a domestic DVD release but it got a DVD release in Japan and possibly some other territories) both in terms of detail and clarity. There's considerably more depth here and the darker scenes have much stronger shadow detail. Color reproduction looks to be pretty good if slightly and the image is free of any noise reduction or obvious edge enhancement. As such, expect a good amount of nice, natural looking film grain to be present throughout. As far as actual print damage is concerned, it's there to be sure, mostly white specks and what not rather than harsh scratches, but it's not all that distracting.

    Audio options on the disc are provided in German in your choice of Dolby Digital 2.0 and Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound with optional subtitles provided in English only. Unfortunately no lossless audio track has been provided here. Despite the fact that the audio doesn't take full advantage of the format, the quality of the track is okay. Levels are properly balanced, hiss and distortion are non-issues and the subtitles are clean, clear and easy to read. Don't expect loads of channel separation on the 5.1 track, however, though it does toy around with the score in the rear channels sometimes.

    Extras on the disc start off with an audio commentary by Jorg Buttgereit and the film's co-author Franz Rodenkirchen. Jorg Buttgereit also provides a quick video introduction you can watch before the movie if you like. The commentary, which is in English, covers the origins of the project, what went into writing the movie, the effects work, how and why the different cast members who are in the film are in the film in the first place, why the film deals with suicide in the manner that it does and where a lot of the concepts and ideas come from. The commentary is surprisingly cheery given the subject matter of the film as the two participants drill down and explain what they were going for here. There's some interesting stories about dealing with the low budget shoot, the effects featured in it and some of the locations used for the shoot among other topics. The intro is 1:15 and Buttgereit gives quick rundown about his feelings on the movie and what sets it apart, the inclusion of Corpse Fucking Art and that's more or less it.

    Also included on the disc is the sixty minute Corpse Fucking Art documentary that was made in 1987. This is quite an in-depth look at Buttgereit's filmmaking style and process as dictated by the man himself. It gives us a look at how both Nekromentik films were put together as well as some insight into what went into making Der Todesking. There's a lot of emphasis here on the effects work that is featured so prominently in his movies and there's a load of behind the scenes material seen here that really helps to let us witness firsthand what it would have been like to work on these low budget pictures with a director obviously quite dedicated to his craft and his personal vision. It's essentially presented as batches of outtakes and footage shot on set with Buttgereit providing commentary over top to give it all context.

    The Making of Der Todesking runs sixteen minutes and features Buttgereit speaking in English over footage from the movie talking about how he and his crew had to do something atypical after Nekromentik. There's then dialogue about the premise of the movie, how certain ideas were tossed around and then later took shape in the film, and more. This plays out over behind the scenes footage and clips from the feature. This is basically the portion on Der Todesking from Corpse Fucking Art excised from that longer documentary, which is kind of superfluous.

    Rounding out the extras is a pretty extensive gallery of still photographs, a selection of trailers for other Buttgereit movies including the feature as well as Nekromentik and Nekromentik 2 (all in HD), and the film's original soundtrack available as an isolated score option off of the menu. All of this comes house inside a slick looking foil embossed slipcover and inside the Blu-ray keepcase you'll find an appropriately disturbing Corpse Fucking Art postcard.

    The Final Word:

    Der Todesking is as dark and brooding as anything you're likely to see but so too is it quite a thought provoking and intelligently made picture. It's true that this is a film that asks you to think, one of those pictures that gives to you what you put into it, but there's a very definite artistry on display as the picture pulls us from one moment of passing to the next. Cult Epics should have given this a lossless track and that didn't happen, but they have otherwise done a very good bringing what is a challenging film to Blu-ray. The transfer looks quite good and the extras are extensive and quite interesting.

    Due to a scratch on the review disc, we weren't able to get any screen caps but here's some images from the chapter menus that Cult Epics sent over to use!














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