What are the kids doing on the internet? It won’t be bad – hopefully. Parents turning on the TV on Wednesday night and Concrete wings see could lose some of that confidence. “Something’s happening on the Internet that none of us see,” the father of a girl calls out in the film, summing up every parent’s nightmare in one sentence, because the girl killed herself.
Lots of things are going in Concrete wings summed up in one sentence, which isn’t always a good thing, but is a common problem in German TV films, in which the focus is more on the topics – and not stories that tell about social problems and less about people. Concrete wings does so, at least initially. Nonetheless, it is an absolutely extraordinary film.
The police can’t do anything, the director doesn’t understand what a challenge is supposed to be
The main role is played by the German teacher Gabrielle (Victoire Laly), who learns from her 16-year-old sister Ava (Seyna Sylla) that the deceased girl was driven to suicide by a chat. The young screenwriter Lilly Bogenberger, born in Munich in 1992, thus takes up the warnings about alleged suicide games in schools, the so-called Blue Whale Challengewhich made the rounds a few years ago but ultimately turned out to be a pure horror story.
In Concrete wings is the game’s creepy reality. The Ikarus Challenge has teenagers complete 17 tasks, the last being suicide. When trying to find someone responsible for the Ikarus game, Gabrielle encounters only resistance. The hands of the police are tied, the director doesn’t understand what a challenge is supposed to be. In one of the most striking scenes, a student desperately tries to explain the principle of the Instagram story to the principal.
Gabrielle’s sister, 16-year-old Ava (Seyna Sylla, right), befriends Laura (Rika Schlegel), who is being bullied at her school.
(Photo: Hardy Spitz/WDR/OdeonFiction)
Lilly Bogenberger landed in the prime time of the first with her feature film screenplay debut. Rightly so, she and the director Lea Becker have succeeded in making a special TV film with a young look at school, depression, bullying and the internet. Concrete wings bears a somewhat strained title, challenges the audience with difficult topics and is nevertheless not alarmist.
The film develops more and more drive and becomes a thriller with a German teacher as the intrepid heroine. Gabrielle is increasingly taking things into her own hands, in the end also brutally grabbing. She does this to clarify what no authority can find out and thus prevent another student from following the Icarus game to the horrible conclusion. In her first major leading role, Victoire Laly plays it wonderfully. With such devotion that her sister Ava soon finds Gabrielle to be more of a concern.
A teacher who kills a mouse has not often been seen on television. Not as beautiful a sister relationship as Ava and Gabrielle’s.
Concrete Wings, Das Erste, Wednesday, 8:15 p.m.