 |
| Writer/director Hark Bohm |
 |
| Bohm and Fassbinder (far left) in 1971 |
NORTH SEA IS DEAD SEA (Nordsee ist Mordsee) B+ Germany (87 mi) 1976 d: Hark Bohm
I often dream of
stealing a sailboat
And simply taking off
I don't know where to yet
The main thing is that I am no longer at home
It just doesn't work with the old folks anymore.
Now let’s see
How far the journey takes us
And where the wind blows me
There must be a place somewhere
For a really wild life
And that's where I want to be now.
—Udo Lindenberg, 1976, Udo Lindenberg - Ich träume oft davon, ein Segelboot zu klau'n ... YouTube (3:17)
A coming-of-age movie from the 70’s when the Federal Republic of Germany was still a divided country, but this child-forward film is considered a classic of German youth cinema, made during a time when hardly anyone was making films for children or young people, yet this film is notable for offering unique insight into teen malaise, realistically capturing social hardships and a yearning for freedom, portraying events realistically, without sensationalizing or embellishment, where the documentary style realism is what gives the film its power, creating a genuine emotional impact, leaving a mark for being authentic, immediate, and uncommonly intimate. Made by German filmmaker Hark Bohm, one of the early collaborators of New German Cinema who is still better known as one of the staple actors for Rainer Werner Fassbinder, where he maintained a lifelong creative partnership, appearing in a dozen of his films in the 70’s and 80’s, including THE AMERICAN SOLDIER (1970), ALI: FEAR EATS THE SOUL (1974), FEAR OF FEAR (1975), THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN (1979), THE THIRD GENERATION (1979), BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ (1980), LILI MARLEEN (1981), and LOLA (1981), playing memorable supporting characters, often bringing a stark, realist gravity to Fassbinder’s intense psychological and social dramas. Yet he was also a widely experienced and altogether unusual filmmaker in his own right, though his largely independent films were rarely screened abroad, many of them featuring his numerous adopted and foster children in starring roles. Cofounding the Filmmakers’ Film Festival (Filmfest der Filmemacher) in 1979 with Werner Herzog, Volker Schlöndorff, and Wim Wenders, which gave rise to modern independent film funding in Germany, Bohm studied law and was also a university professor at the University of Hamburg, where he inaugurated the school’s film studies program, promoting film literacy, while acting as a vital bridge between the radical postwar generation of German auteurs and modern filmmakers, mentoring talent like German-Turkish filmmaker Fatih Akin. Written and directed by Bohm, this film focuses on young people’s everyday lives, starring his own adopted son Uwe Bohm as 14-year old Uwe, a freckle-faced kid living at home in a dysfunctional family with his working mother (Herma Koehn) and abusive, alcoholic father (Marquard Bohm, the director’s younger brother) in a dreary Hamburg high-rise housing project. His deadbeat dad drowns his sorrows in alcohol, regularly beating both Uwe and his mother, creating plenty of unreleased, inner rage in Uwe, venting his frustrations in a series of petty crimes and bullying that he commits with a small gang he leads, starting in the schoolyard, where together they terrorize fellow misfits with derogatory racist taunts, particularly an Asian student with no friends and no father, Dschingis (Dschingis Bowakow, biological son of the director’s wife, raised as their foster son), cruelly described as a “wog,” a “foreigner,” and a “slit-eyed outsider.” Among the many charms of the film is that it is largely spoken in Hamburg slang, which differs significantly from standard German, making it difficult to comprehend even for native Germans, much like Andrea Arnold, Mike Leigh, Ken Loach, and Lynne Ramsay in British cinema.
While a beloved film in Germany, it is practically unknown in North America, so this is a film that deserves rescue from oblivion. Bohm lived in the region for three months prior to filming to research the subject and develop the screenplay with his actors, creating something original and critical, yet what’s unique about the film is the prominent casting of family members, where the two starring roles are arch enemies played by the director’s own foster children, creating an unusual sense of intimacy that carries throughout the entire picture, reflecting a time when children had to cope with being alone on the street, where the brash attitude of punk rebellion from a child’s vantage point recalls Linda Manz in Dennis Hopper’s Out of the Blue (1980). When we witness the xenophobic, bullying behavior of the gang, it recalls those self-absorbed kids from Fassbinder’s KATZELMACHER (1969), which was notable for the way he arranges a group of disaffected and bored young people a little differently each time in a line facing the camera, returning to this same image frequently, a highly stylized way to project venomous racist hatred, like a Greek chorus, evolving out of his own play, which transfigures a cinema of poverty into bleakly triumphant rites of despair. Set in Wilhelmsburg, Hamburg, the second largest city after Berlin, known as a multicultural, vibrant neighborhood with a mix of industrial history, creative art scenes, and green spaces, crossed by hundreds of canals connecting the Elbe River to the North Sea. Much of this film is spent on the waterways, which is a distinctly different approach, creating a completely different visual landscape, beautifully shot by Wolfgang Treu, capturing several sunsets over the sea. Evolving out of the harsh, unforgiving environment, Uwe and his gang break into a slot machine, but Uwe keeps the money for himself, which leads to disgruntled friends, who wait in vain for their cut. Instead, he buys a switchblade, but on the way back from the store, he notices Dschingis building a raft out of scrap wood. The next day Dschingis finds his raft destroyed, with the gang looking on, again taunting him with vile racist disdain, prompting an angry attack, with Dschingis thoroughly outnumbered, but he fights them off, and a dual ensues between Uwe and Dschingis, who ultimately prevails, causing the others to flee. Dschingis forces Uwe to help him repair his raft. In an attempt to repair the damage with his gang, still waiting for their cut from the robbery, and in an attempt to save face after losing the fight, finding his leadership in question, Uwe steals a car, but his joyride is cut short before the police catch him, returning him home to his father, who brutally beats him afterwards, nearly killing him, leaving him scarred and bandaged. A raw and skillfully written social study of growing up in an impoverished working-class neighborhood of troubled youth and generational conflict, the two boys eventually overcome their animosity and bond over shared feelings of alienation, realizing that they have the same dysfunctional family problems and social burdens, with Dschingis eventually standing up for him.
With visible signs of abuse on his battered face, Uwe decides to skip school, asking Dschingis, of all people, to notify the school for him, meeting up afterwards, refusing to go back home, wondering if he can stay with Dschingis, but his mother (Natalia Bowakow, the director’s wife) refuses, claiming it’s against the law to illegally hide a child, which only infuriates Dschingis, both of them commiserating on what to do, where they decide to run away together. In short order this becomes a buddy hangout movie, as the second half shifts into a compelling, heartfelt adventure as the two abused and bullied boys form an unlikely alliance. Using the repaired raft, they set out from the Port of Hamburg, but the homemade contraption proves too slow and cumbersome, finding themselves precariously positioned between tugboats, freighters, and much bigger ships that nearly run them over or capsize them, where they stand out like sitting ducks, so Uwe decides to steal a much faster dingy, which allows them swifter movement from the wind in the sails as they continue heading down the Lower Elbe, spending the night along the banks of the river, where in the morning light they find themselves near the Hahnöfersand Correctional Facility, a juvenile detention center, realizing those prisoners are hardly older than they are, suddenly imagining seeing themselves there. Part of the controversy at the time was the film was rated unacceptable for viewers under age 16, due to the harsh depiction of reality, yet those same viewers could watch extremely violent action thrillers. What this amounted to was political censorship based on outdated ideals about protecting children. From stealing boats to knife-wielding stick-ups and kung-fu fights (both have Bruce Lee posters in their rooms), it’s difficult to watch the casual schoolyard racism and brutal honesty about 1970’s social environments, yet Bohm sustains a compelling theme of alienation. As the two boys continue downstream, approaching where the mouth of the Elbe meets the North Sea, they are approached by a police boat, but manage to escape through the shallow reeds in a side channel, quickly abandoning their boat to hide onshore, breaking into a kiosk at night as they were desperately hungry, where the two of them resemble a modern day version of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, where life along the river presents everpresent dangers. Forced to continually evade police with narrow escapes, the final shot is an image of their boat sailing down the river, seen against the setting sun, away from the hopelessness of everyday life, while a poetic refrain from Udo Lindenberg’s song leads from a blue sea to a black screen with no end credits, Ich träume oft davon, ein Segelboot zu klau'n // Udo Lindenberg YouTube (2:26). Engaging and suspenseful, never resorting to a moralizing, yet artistically impactful, the film deals with the miserable living conditions suffered by many young people from the postwar working-class generation, becoming a believable adventure film that addresses the feelings of disaffected youth growing up without love.
Note
Hark Bohm died of natural causes surrounded by his family at the age of 86 in November 2025.
