TV tip
Crazy crook comedy “The White Goblin” in the first
Freddy (Frederick Lau) meets an art agent – and nothing is like it used to be. photo
© Christian Anwander/BR/Lotus Film/ORF/dpa
Forwarding specialist Freddy will not forget this night. He’s just supposed to get cigarettes for his boss when the art agent Ema enters his life and turns it upside down.
Art and cocaine – Freddy (Frederick Lau) has never dealt with either in his life. The young man has a new job as a forwarding specialist and wants to do his job correctly. But then he realizes that his boss is not so particular about correctness.
When the art agent Ema (Maya Unger) snows into his life, Freddy gets involved in criminal activities of a completely different kind – and his life falls apart. Director and author Marvin Kren unfolds a fast-paced and adventurous trip through Vienna’s underworld in “The White Goblin”. The first shows the comedy on Wednesday at 8:15 p.m.
Freddy, a somewhat naïve, harmless average guy, has got himself into trouble with his boss Zeko (Michael Thomas). The trucking company appears to be using trucks for illegal smuggling trips and Freddy has noticed. Now he’s stressed. Then Freddy meets Ema. The mysterious art agent makes him a tempting offer: “Would you like to earn 1,000 euros for an hour’s work right now?” With this sentence, the wildest night of Freddy’s life begins.
Vienna instead of New York
Ema screwed up a cocaine shipment. She deposited a kilo of the white powder with her brother Martin (Simon Steinhorst) and now it’s gone. Martin is an artist. Young, talented and a little crazy. He thinks he met a white goblin. Intoxicated, he mixed the cocaine into his paints and painted it in a picture cycle. Now the nightclub owner is demanding his dope, and Ema is in a bind. She pulls Freddy deep into the brutal darkness of the underworld.
Director Kren tells the ARD interview that the model for the film is the Hollywood strip “Time After Midnight” (1985) by Martin Scorsese. In Vienna instead of New York. “The White Kobold” shows a wild night in Austria’s capital and a foray through its art scene.
But the film is more than a crook comedy with thriller elements, says Kren. “This nocturnal journey is also intended to awaken old forgotten spirits in us – like the white goblin here, which for me is a metaphor for the wild, bad, free, easy-going child within us that we all once were and have now pushed aside.”