HUNDSBUAM - DIE LETZTE CHANCE

“If you tell him off, he disengages and you will not get any further with him.” School children like this are frequently failed by the regular school system. For the selected few in the district of Erding at least there is still the “GIK,” which offers special full-time intensive classes. Here two fearless educators give a handful of bad boys their very last chance to get prepared for, at best, low-paid positions in manufacturing. But it’s not so easy. Will the little rebels, after all they have been through, finally realise that a task results in a product? Is it ok for Freddy to call Ramazan a “complete idiot” because it is the same as when a black person calls someone else a “Nigger?” No: “I don’t want anyone to talk like that in here,” says Mooser, the teacher, because he knows that acceptable language means clear communication. But what happens when, in the end, even the school dog Zenzi doesn’t give a damn about treats and insults?
Riedel’s well-known flair for irony and restrained, formal commentary means that the story of his tragic heroes is as packed with punchlines as a whimsical comedy. Marcus Morlinghaus