Dysfunctional families and a complicated father-son relationship have been a recurring theme not only in the German cinema.Often in these films the children are more reasonable and have to show the adults the way with their sense for reality, for example in "Netto".The situation is similar in "Jagdhunde", the debut film of Ann-Kristien Reyels.Main character is the pubescent Lars,who after the separation of his parents lives with his father in a east-German provincial backwater.The father plans to turn an old barn into some kind of hotel for weddings - a strange idea,as the son clearly understands, in a society,where less and less people get married.Worth mentioning also is the fact, that in the whole film there is not one traditional family,but only patchwork-relationships.Ignored by the mostly close-mouthed locals they try to get along in the cold and winterly wasteland.Things change when Lars befriends a mute girl,which is also living only with her father and when for Christmas arrives not only the secret new lover of his father, the sister of his ex-wife, but the Ex herself with her much younger new lover.It is very pleasant to see how the developing,earnest and still insecure feelings of the teenagers are opposed to the calculated behavior of the adults aimed primarily at effects.Highlight of the film is a Christmas-dinner,which with its artificial holiday-like atmosphere and the hidden acrimony is as hilarious as it is depressing.The adults are not objects of mockery,but spectators develop an understanding for the actions,which are finally motivated by anxiety and insecurity.The relation between the two teenagers also is open for interpretations: Is it love or just the need of outsiders for a friend of the same age.It makes you a bit sorry,that this natural feeling and acting will disappear with the years, for getting older they will have to adapt to adult manners.Nevertheless the film depicts very precisely that phase of growing-up, in which you think the adults to be so ridiculous and dishonest and you are convinced never to become like them.The acting is flawless and laconic with some comic moments,especially by von Jascheroff("Falscher Bekenner") and by famous austrian actor Joseph Hader("Indien").Directing comes off very elegant and fluent - not the rigidness of the "Berliner Schule" - ,just one little point of critic: The sometimes exaggerated use of symbolic landscapes ( snow-covered fields,frozen pond).Overall an exactly perceived and felt film about the difficulties of growing-up and the gap between the generations.
