David Lange | Lonely Ditmar / 2015

trapped

by Douglas Messerli

 

David Lange (screenwriter and director) Lonely Dietmar / 2015 [14 minutes]

 

German director David Lange’s short Lonely Dietmar is a sad tale in every way. A young 18-year-old, who should be out with his peers enjoying himself, is busy communicating on his computer with an older man who suggested he might pay him for sex.

     The boy, Jan (Philipp Weiser) has an alcoholic mother, who when she is relatively sober, begs him for money so that she might buy groceries, obviously spending most of whatever she gets on beer and other such beverages. Although she claims it’s so bad and that things will not always be the same, Jan knows they have little chance of changing, and until he can leave home there is no hope for him if he wants to eat. 

      Why he hasn’t sought out other employment isn’t explained. But he has no choice now but to meet up with the man with whom he’s been in contact.

      We already know that his correspondent, Ditmar (Stephen Senftleben), is a grossly overweight

man, the lonely Ditmar of the title. And when Jan does finally hook up with him it is clear he is uncomfortable by the situation.

       Nonetheless, he walks from the park with Ditmar to his small apartment and allows the man to fellate him. Ditmar pays him a small amount, but Jan, washing up after the event, leaves it in the bathroom.

       Returning home to his mother, who is now passed out, he takes out a bill from his billfold, money he has obviously obtained from another source, and stuffs it into her pocket.

     Clearly, Jan has refused to become a prostitute in leaving behind Ditmar’s “gift.” But we’re not sure how long he can resist yet another visit or connecting up with someone else. At the end of the film he again contacts Ditmar, who wonders why he has left the money behind, suggesting that he can come to pick it up or, if he wants to engage in sex again, add to it.

     Lange’s own musical score suggests in its almost sickening whine of chords that Jan has few choices given the life his mother has chosen to lead. If Ditmar is lonely, Jan is trapped.

 

Los Angeles, February 17, 2024

Reprinted from My Queen Cinema blog (February 2024).