Page 53 - AIT0622_E-Paper

Jeden Monat nähern sich unsere Kolumnisten, die Berliner Filmemacher Dominik und Benjamin Reding, dem jeweiligen Heftthema
auf ihre ganz eigene Art und Weise. Geboren wurden die Zwillinge am 3. Januar 1969 in Dortmund. Während Dominik Architektur
in Aachen und Film in Hamburg studierte, absolvierte Benjamin ein Schauspielstudium in Stuttgart. 1997 begann die Arbeit an ihrem
ersten gemeinsamen Kinofilm „Oi! Warning“. Seitdem arbeiten sie für Fernseh- und Kinofilmprojekte zusammen.

Each month our columnists, Berlin-based filmmakers Dominik and Benjamin Reding, approach the respective issue-specific theme
in their very personal way. The twins were born on January 3, 1969 in Dortmund. Whilst Dominik studied architecture in Aachen
and film in Hamburg, Benjamin graduated in acting studies in Stuttgart. They started working on their first joint motion picture “Oi!
Warning“ in 1997. Since then they have tightly collaborated for TV and cinema film projects.

L opakhin: “I have pleasant news for you: You know that your cherry orchard will back with a Pepsi. “No, my son suffers from a metabolic disorder”. Father awkwardly
explained it, the innkeeper seemed to not really understand it. “For him, only water.”
come under the hammer. The date is 22nd August. But do not worry about this,
sleep peacefully and insouciantly – there is a way out. Your estate is located only She considered, took the Pepsi from the table. “Seltzer or tap?” “Seltzer”. With beer
twenty versts from the town and it has a direct railway connection: if the cherry or- and water, she came back, her shoes clicked on the stone floor worn smooth.”
chard is subdivided into lots and summer cottages are built on it, you can secure “Three fifty.” My father fished the money out, lit is pipe, drank his beer without tal-
yourself a yearly income of at least 25,000 rubels.” Gayew: “Excuse me, this is pure king. The innkeeper stayed near the table, scrutinized me, for a long time, my skinny
nonsense!” (Anton Chekhov, in his play The Cherry Orchard). That summer, I fell ill. body, my exhausted, pasty face. Suddenly, she turned lively. “Hey, you want to see
It was a very hot summer and I fell very ill. I was taken in a taxi to the large children’s our penguin?” Penguin? I nodded eagerly! “Come along, then!” She took me by the
hospital. A severe-looking construction but, of course, it was up to the latest medical hand, led me back into the hall and then through a small door. “This is actually all
standard. Initially, the doctors thought the disease might be infectious and thus I was closed down already.” She pushed me outside in front of her, into the brightness, into
put into a single room, a very small one, with an even smaller window. That was why a garden. “This is our beer garden! It is famous!” Between dense, blooming lilac bus-
I wasn’t allowed to play with the other children who also – for many reasons, from hes stood foldable tables and chairs, they looked ancient to me, made of iron and
measles to a broken arm – had to spend the summer in hospital. So, I watched them wood painted green. In softly moving patches, the light fell through the dense leaf
from the window and coloured the animals in my colouring book. After two months, canopy of the chestnut trees. Here and there, beer glasses were still standing on the
my father came and picked me up. The dynamic, friendly, almost cheerful chief phy- tables, overgrown with moss as if, a long time ago, a group had had to hurriedly leave
sician explained to him that I was incurably ill but he smiled and called it “conditio- the cheerful get-together. Then I discovered him, he wasn’t alone. He stood on an ar-
nally healthy”. I only had to keep a strict diet, return to the hospital every year for tificial rocky plateau, below him a stonewalled pond with a tiny, gushing waterfall,
“checking purposes” and have two injections per day, as of now and for ever after. overtopped by a mighty weeping willow roofing over the entire little ensemble like a
Then he energetically shook my father’s hand, like a businessman after closing a suc- house and protecting everything: the penguin. He was made of plastic and stretched
cessful deal. We did not take the usual route, not directly up, the head attentively raised, on an ice floe, likewise made
home. “I have a surprise”, my father said. The taxi took us of plastic. “Oh!”, I said. “You sure didn’t expect this, some-
far into the south of the city, to the farmhouses, the old cot- thing so beautiful, right?” I nodded. “And his mate looks
tages of framework and quarry stones, which were nestled after him!” The pudgy lady smiled. And indeed, behind the
in the scenery between maple avenues and high hedges – penguin, looking at him in a friendly way, a second figure
hump-backed as if grown out of it. “It is there behind this.” was hiding in the shade of the weeping willow: a gnome
Father pointed to a quarry-stone wall and lifted me up: I saw with a roughly scaled fish in his arms, also made of plastic.
an overgrown garden, full of stinging nettles, ivy, shady No doubt the gnome and the penguin were good friends. “He
chestnut trees and a covered, half-decayed bowling alley. protects him, yes? Always, no matter when …, no matter
“This is our piece of property. This is where we will soon be doing what ….?” I hopefully looked into the eyes of the inn-
building!” Then he took me by the hand and, without tal- keeper, into her round, reddish face. She deliberated, a bit
king, we went along the old quarry-stone wall that surroun- longer. “Yes … this is certainly what I believe …” Then she
ded the plot like a sheltering embrace. And suddenly, far too Foto: Benjamin Reding again so thoughtfully scrutinized me and took me by the
large, too stately, too dramatic, a mighty sandstone building hand. “You now have to come here more often!” “This will
rose up between the crouching farmers’ cottages and their all be torn down”. The gentleman with the hat and the dog
cow’s pastures, strictly symmetrical, with wide stairs, a pilaster-framed entrance por- came back from his walk. “Yet the building may even have been designed by Schin-
tal and two maple trees, at the left and the right of it. “It is the fault of the carbon kel.” He threw a stick for his dog. “Used to be a Prussian postal station, but then the
and the fault of Prussia. Without the swamp forests of the carbon and the Prussian trains came and it was all over with the horse-drawn carriages.” The dog took off
sense of order, the inn there would not exist!” A gentleman with horn-rimmed glas- panting. “The coal of the carbon has saved the pub, the miners and their after-work
ses, a hat and a dog greeted us. “Yes, go right in! It used to be an attraction, there beer.” The dog came back while snorting, in his mouth the little stick that was full of
were even postcards showing it!” He smiled, no, it was actually more of a grin, a bit- drool. “And the coal mine has been closed for ten years already, now the land will
ter one. Then the gentleman dealt with his dog and we went up the sandstone steps be subdivided.” He lifted his hat for a polity farewell. “And there is even an under-
and entered through the well-proportioned, very ancient-Greek and classicist portal. ground tunnel that links this building with my farmhouse standing opposite it. Hard
“What do you want, you mite?” Without waiting for an answer, a pudgy lady turned to believe, isn’t it?” “Then we will become neighbours!” My father said, not without
towards my father: “We’re still closed. Open only after noon, then there will also be pride. “Well, well …”, the gentleman replied, who now looked strangely aged and
something to eat.” The massive innkeeper stood in the entrance hall, behind her a bent. “… good luck, then!” And to his dog: “Cerberus, come on!” At the end of the
wide wooden stairwell, red-white stone tiles on the floor and something ornate made summer, the inn was closed, the beer garden was divided up, the old chestnut trees
of wood and glass next to her – it looked a bit like an old post-office counter. “Well, were felled, the beer advertisements were stolen and the new houses, also my fat-
you have a beer already now.” She wiped her hands on her apron and led us into her’s, were being built. Stop, yes, one night, shortly before the last plot was to be le-
the taproom. The walls yellow from smoke, the whirring of a refrigerator, the gurgling velled, I climbed over the site fence and stole the gnome and his friend, the penguin,
of a syphon, the smell of a damp cellar, stale smoke, spilled beer. “And you’ll have a from of the cleared, devastated garden. I wanted them to be able to remind me, also
limo, right?” “No”, my father said, but she was already behind the counter and came of the most beautiful beer garden that I have ever been to.

AIT 6.2022 • 053