Langreview Kurzkritik English Version Fakten + Credits

Freibad ©2022 Constantin Film Verleih

The city of Freiburg im Breisgau has a treasure that can no longer be found anywhere else in Germany: a women’s outdoor pool. This special feature is rooted in history, because when it was founded in 1841 it was still operated as a men’s pool and 45 years later a separate women’s area was added to maintain a strict separation of the sexes. To keep prying eyes out, the area for female visitors is completely surrounded by walls, hedges and cubicles. While other women’s outdoor pools have been closed or converted into family pools throughout history, the Lorettobad (so named because it is located at the foot of the Lorettoberg) retained this unique selling point. Instead, the men’s area was restructured into a family pool. According to the house rules, however, the women’s rule does not apply to the staff, which is why a male lifeguard can work there, which has caused quite a furore at times.

Doris Dörrie, who lives in southern Germany, was once described by Der Spiegel magazine as Germany’s most successful female director and has a star on the boulevard of stars in Berlin, has taken on this particular culture in her new film. Alongside Nilam Farooq, who most recently released the films CONTRA and EINGESCHLOSSENE GESELLSCHAFT with Sönke Wortmann, Andrea Sawatzki can also be seen once again in a major role in a feature film. At the time of review publication, the film is celebrating its world premiere at the Munich Film Festival.

Here’s what it’s about

In Germany’s last women’s outdoor pool, the world still seems to be in perfect order. The regulars relax on the same old sunbathing areas, the children romp around in the youth pool, and women do their laps on the 25-metre track under the watchful eye of the lifeguard. Everything has remained the same here for decades. But when local Orthodox Muslims discover the place, everything seems to change. For the ever-growing group, this place is a miracle, because they can find a little recreation themselves without the danger of male gazes and dive into the burkini. But when they arrive, things suddenly change, because the Freiburg women don’t really like the cultural confrontation, which is why from now on they fight to have their sacred retreat all to themselves again, even resorting to nasty tricks. Can the residents win this confrontation?

Review

Rarely have I been so shocked by a film that I couldn’t find the words afterwards to paint a proper picture of just that. FREIBAD is pretty much the most racist, discriminatory and anti-feminist work I have ever seen. And as if that were not enough, this film is brimming with content-related stupidity and immoderateness. It is completely inconceivable what we are being served here, and it should even go so far that a release of this film should be examined under criminal law, even if a complaint would probably be dismissed with artistic freedom. It is an imposition that people could see this film and possibly be misled into believing that what is being shown here is perfectly fine.

Freibad ©2022 Constantin Film Verleih

But let’s take a closer look at this disaster. Obviously, screenwriter and director Doris Dörrie is working with a template that already contains a lot of debatable material, because several times police interventions have had to take place in the swimming pool, which is not named in the film, to end massive differences. Now, it would of course be negligent in a cinematic realisation not to address such points, but there are very clear differences in the way racist and otherwise contemptuous dialogue is presented. Even a simple text panel at the beginning, which points out that various dialogues have been taken over unchanged or are at least part of a real history, could suggest to the audience that the scenes depicted do not originate from the world view of the film team. However, this is deliberately omitted here, which means that a large audience that is not familiar with the history of the open-air swimming pool can get the impression that ethnic groups are being purposefully defamed here.

Various hate speeches

The perfidious racism expresses itself in various ways. For example, entrance fees are massively increased only for people wearing burqas and then immediately lowered again, direct and indirect confrontations are sought that drag both religion and origin through the mud, and a fireworks display of clichés is fired off that is probably rarely seen on this scale. It should be noted, however, that these hostile events do not only refer to Muslimas, but also to other ethnicities or even sexual orientations. Surprisingly, there is only one thing that is quite commendable here, as we get quite a diverse cast, including a wide range of body proportions. Bodyshaming is again verbally addressed, but the filmmaker is not above also showing an obese woman in unflattering poses without immediately wanting to create a shameless gag out of it.

Freibad ©2022 Constantin Film Verleih

In fact, this is the next tragedy: all the reprehensibly mentioned points are dismissed and equalised with a cheap gag, instead of simply putting them in the room or even criticising them directly. FREIBAD tries to extract an uncharming joke from every scene, no matter how superfluous, and fails on all levels. Neither are the jokes funny, nor logical or well-founded. So the audience has to watch an agitated mob arguing for several minutes about who shit in the pool. As if that wasn’t enough, we get almost every undignified joke about a turd thrown at us that there is, which means that this scene seems to have no end.

Freibad ©2022 Constantin Film Verleih

Shocking on all levels

But so far we have only focused on the problems with the content. Technically, FREIBAD is no better and would thus be an absolute cinematic failure even without discrimination. Be it the professional swimmer who can’t even master the simplest swimming techniques correctly, the lifeguard who is always asleep and sounds her whistle as a judge’s gavel after every word, the grill master who thinks that a grill becomes halal simply by wiping it down or the cashier who takes bribes all the time and is always spouting some new nonsense. In all corners, the work offers an incredible amount of extraneous potential and stupidity that cannot be explained. While it is commendable that one of the characters is not ashamed of her armpit hair, this moment is immediately destroyed by the fact that it has a completely inexplicable turquoise tinge. So even if such an exaggeration was intended in all scenes without exception, the shot backfires.

Conclusion

It is an absolute impertinence that something like this is being broadcast and even shown at a film festival as a world premiere. Modern images of women and hard-earned manners are transported back to the Stone Age, while the audience is supposed to laugh their heads off at such disgusting productions, which fortunately cannot happen because the work is also completely unfunny. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no discernible purpose, which makes it questionable how a film distributor could wave through such a production and countless German development funds thought that financial support would be appropriate after all. FREIBAD is an insult to the standard of German film, which already does not have the best reputation.

How did you like the movie?
(24 Bewertungen, Durchschnitt: 5,17 von 10)

Loading...