Page 53 - AIT1217_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. Ja nuar 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.

An Essay by Dominik Reding
R ita is a Mod. No, that's not a typo and she is not a member of a “Military refurnishing her home to become a Jacobsen apartment in the true 1960s
Organisation Service” or the “Ministry of Defence” and actually she is not a
Scandinavian style.
Mod, she was a Mod, but in the end, you stay a Mod all your life. Once a Mod, “Do you want to come to the Who concert?” Why did her clique ask me? I wasn't a
always a Mod, people used to say back then. But she forgot. No doubt about it. Mod, I didn't wear suits and I didn't even have a scooter. “We've got one free seat
Mod, that used to be very important. Especially for the young people who were if you get in on the fuel.” Okay, that's why. I came along. To the concert hall of the
“The Mods”. You listened to music from “The Who” or “The Jam”, wore fancy neighbouring city. And while the others stuttered along to “My ge... ge... generation”,
clothes from the 60s, the lads in suits, the women in cocktail dresses, and outdoors Rita disappeared in the dark hallways of the town hall and returned with two plastic
parkas with a fur collar. And you drove, that was the condition, only then you were bags. Pills! Her friends cheered. Then, hoarse and sweaty, we drove back. Why did
allowed to call yourself a Mod, a scooter, either a Vespa or (rarer and therefore cool- it have to get so cold? Why did the roadway have to ice up? Why did the VW Polo
er) a Lambretta. Rita drove a Lambretta. A white Lambretta with lots of chrome and have to slither like a drunken skater? At first, we were the only ones on the motor-
a handful of rear-view mirrors, just as is right for the scooter of a real Mod. Mod, way. But not for long. Blue police lights flickered. Rita could have swallowed the
that comes from “modernists”, a youth cult from England in the 1960s. Teenagers pills, but there were too many of them. She could have put them behind the door
who raved for France and the existentialists, listened to beat music and drove panel, but she couldn't get it off, she could have thrown them out of the window,
scooters, because it was the only means of transport they could afford, and pre- but they were far too expensive. So she held the pills in her hands. The police offi-
ferred to consume stimulants in pill form rather cer's flashlight immediately shone on the small
than drink beer in the pub as their parents did. plastic bags. Actually, Rita might have liked the
Then the cult disappeared and 20 years later it courtroom: teak wood panels, strict, reduced
experienced a comeback: the rock band “The lines, floor-to-ceiling windows with aluminium
Who” made a movie about the Mods and lo frames, tubular steel chairs with bentwood
and behold, even in the German province, backrests. Pure 60s design. “As if designed by
pupils suddenly wore black suits again, cut Egon Eiermann,” I said, proud to have remem-
their hair in mushroom head hairstyles and bered the first name. But Rita didn't laugh and
practised standing around in a relaxed and she didn't listen. The judge read out the indict-
bored manner, swallowing pills and riding a ment: violation of the Narcotics Act. Nobody
scooter. from her Mod clique had come. Her public
Rita, even her name was perfect, because it defender listlessly did his duty, the prosecutor
reminded of the big, sad eyes of Rita listlessly gave his final speech, and then the
Tushingham, of “Lovely Rita” by the Beatles, verdict was passed: 100 hours of community
60s coolness, art and style. In her Mod clique, service and a fine. “No jail...,” her voice trem-
Rita was the queen, smoked cigarettes with a bled. Afterwards she stood alone in front of the
tip, laughed self-confidently and generously courthouse. She was smoking, the well-
distributed those cheering pills that were so thumbed files under her arm. “Come on, I'll
important in the Mod scene and so hard to give you a lift home,” I said.
come by in the province. She didn't like me at Foto: Benjamin Reding She forgot to say goodbye outside the front
all. With a sweet and sour smile, she acknowl- door. A high-rise housing estate on the out-
edged all my attempts to communicate. Once, skirts of the city. Grey scratch plaster, trodden
when I saw her drawing something (and she drew well) I said: “You definitely have concrete steps. Together we went upstairs. The sound of a game show rang from the
to do something with art.” She looked at me the way a shrink looks at his incurable apartment, it smelled of beer and sour cabbage. Someone was watching TV. “Keep
cases and replied: “I don't want to do art, I want to buy art”. That was something the volume of the music down this time!” “Yes, Dad.” She opened the door at the
else that set the Mods apart from other youth cultures. Consumption was okay for end of the narrow hallway. Her room. Ten square metres, one window, facing north.
them. While the punks said, smash your furniture and throw it out of the window, A bed at the wall, a desk underneath the window. Department store furniture,
and the hippies demanded, paint it brightly and use it to fly to Mars, and the Resopal-coated, shabby and battered. She sat down on the only chair. By this Danish
Bhagvan disciples asked followers to renounce all possessions, the neat furnishing designer with the crispbread name. Its backrest was missing. Rita breathed deeply,
of the teenage room was part of the Mod culture. Rita was also well versed in this, wiped the exhaustion off her face and noticed me only now, and only now that I was
she didn't call her flat her flat, but her “apartment” and threw exotic words around. in her room. “The conversion ... is not ready yet ...,” I nodded. “There will also be
“String shelf”, “Jacobsen chair”, “Eames Chair”, “Eiermann table”, “Panton lamp”, Charles Eames armchairs and Panton lamps and pictures by Roy Lichtenstein.” Her
“Snow White's coffin” and all that at a time, when I thought “Arne Jacobsen” was voice became quieter and after a break she said: “Thank you.” Then she kept quiet.
a Danish crispbread and “Roy Lichtenstein” was the name of an outdated pop “You know, there are some of those Arne... Arne chairs standing around in the audi-
singer. But Rita never invited to any get-togethers and parties of the kind her mod- torium. I'll bring one of those. Should I?” “Yes,” she said, “but only if it's a genuine
mates held at their homes. She was currently renovating, she then said, she was one.” And laughed. For the first time today.

AIT 12.2017 • 053