Nekromantik 2

Ah, the old, tie a wire around a man's erect penis, saw off his head, and replace it with your dead ex-lovers head, trick.

STORY/HISTORY

Our German visionary returns in 1991 to bring us the sequel to his controversial film Nekromantik. Filmed on a tiny budget, Buttgereit manages to expand the story and delve a little deeper in the human psyche and the disorders which can exist. Briefly, the story picks up right where the last one left us. We get a brief recap of the first films ending, and the next thing you know, our woman is digging up our guy to have him as well. Our woman from the first film , who left our main character in the first film for the corpse, reappears and tries to reclaim her lost love, only to find she is too late. The story takes us through the same trip as the first, an ordinary person falling to the pleasures of necrophilia and how she copes with it. She really attempts to have a "normal" relationship, but is not capable of doing such. At the end, we are treated to an awesome climax which most will enjoy. Enough said. What makes this film work is the absence of almost all dialogue and its artistic cinematography. Most notably, the first five minutes of the new film. Buttgereits' composition of visuals combined with great music will make most feel privileged to watch such a work. I know many hate this film, but even they recognize the first and last five minutes as a great achievement. It is also worth mentioning some analogies employed elsewhere in the film. We have a man missing a train which shows how it's too late for our female-there is no return from where she is about to go. We also get a sped up time lapse moment of flowers decomposing next to the corpse to help us understand how she is surrounded by death all around her. We also get the movie within a movie that provides us with an almost surreal, Bergmanesque quality film fans rarely see nowadays. It is a work of art on many levels, but hard to endure on many levels as well.

Furthermore, necrophilia is not the easiest topic to think about, not to mention, watch being graphically depicted, but some, including myself, will be able to put that aside, and get to the real meat of the story- the psychological ramifications of a person being overtaken by an obsession. Like the first film, the corpses are merely a metaphor for the mental addiction people find themselves with, and like the first film, the sequel also displays a crystal clear sense of an inherent social boundary breakdown. Those with the patience and the stomach for it, will find a film that helps you identify with our heroine in the sense of our attraction to the grotesque and her link to corpses and libido. Any way you describe it (Brilliant), Albatros brings us their new release of this German classic, and the disc is…

VIDEO

The film is correctly presented NTSC full frame, the way it was intended. Buttgereit always prefers this ratio as it lends to the documentary feel of all his work. Once I got this disc, I immediately pulled out my two old VHS copies and did a direct comparison. The improvement was astounding. Keep in mind that Jorg shot this on 8mm film and it was later blown up to 16mm for its very brief theatrical run in Germany before being banned. With that having been said, this will never look any better. Barrel will have a hard time even matching this, let alone surpassing it. I want to point out that the print is not perfect, as it exhibits minor scratches and print damage, but the image is clear, crisp, and devoid of any artifacting. A slight niggle is the film grain, whichconsidering the source quality and film stock used, is not a big deal at all. The one major problem is the optical censoring. It is apparent throughout the movie and really destroys some of the composition, but, with the Japanese tendencies to hide pubic hair, this doesn't come as a surprise. Other than that, Albatros has done a remarkable job with the transfer and went byond what I was ideally expecting from the film's transfer.

SOUND

Having never been dubbed into English, the sound given to us is a DD mono German track with non-removable Jap subs. No English options exist on this disc. Other than that issue, the sound does an ample job. There are no hisses or cracks in the audio and the score (which is incredible) has never seen a better day nor will it ever. You don't really need English to appreciate this film, but it would have been nice. Barrel, here is room for improvement, otherwise, Albatros impresses me again.

EXTRAS

Surprisingly enough, there are a decent amount of extras to be found here. Usually, as you are all aware, the Jap discs are almost always bare, so you can imagine my delight as I found the few extras. First we have the original trailer. It is the same as the one that can be found on Barrel's Nekromantik & Schramm discs and the quality is the same. Next up, we have a lengthy Behind the Scenes featurette on the making of Nekro 2. It too is in German with unremovable Jap subs. It looks dated, but the worst part is any insight it might have provided, is thwarted with it being in German. It is cool though (being a huge Buttgereit fan) to watch him and his crew in the process of creating scenes from the film. Finally there is something labeled as a commentary, but looks to be another German only featurette with them at a theater of some sorts. Even with the German only problems, I was very pleased with the amount of extras, which Albatros provided us with. They seem to know how to treat great films even as they are a new company. Great job.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Barrel's going to be visiting this title sometime next year and that simple fact makes it difficult to recommend this disc, especially at $70. What we have is a film that will only appeal to the hardcore and a disc that can only lend itself to the ultimate completist within this group to boot. Personally, I love this film as it truly represents the many facets of Buttgereit's distinct filmmaking , but most will find it slow paced and possibly hard to sit through with the necrophilia. It also might be a tad too heady for the people out there just looking for shock material. It has enough gore, but the beauty is in the journey it lets us travel through- an extremely obsessive behavioral disorder. Whether you wait for Barrel's release or just aren't interested it's simple, pass on this release, but watch for Albatros to become a force to be reckoned with import Jap discs.

DISC RATINGS

FILM-B

VIDEO-B+

AUDIO-B

EXTRAS-A-

Review by Dolph Chiarino