Page 222 - Alternative Europe Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945

objects. Was this conscious?
Red always has something to do with blood, and it's a film about blood and danger, I think with
red it's very easy to obtain certain effects. But if there is a conscious colour scheme for me, then
Nekromantik is a green movie and Nekromantik II is a yellow movie. We had the choice between two
materials of film stock when we made the first copy. (The film was done on Super-8 with Kodak film
stock and there is no negative.) Kodak stuff is yellow and when we made the first print blow-up we
used Fuji 16mm material because it has a green touch to it. We used this to make it look more dirty
and grainy.
Why is the opening of Nekromantik so dark?
That was made in the backyard of the producer. So we couldn't allow you to see anything because
just behind the car is the producer's house.
Why do you open with a woman urinating?
Because it is something you normally don't see in films. Body fluids is also one of the themes of
Nekromantik.
It's not shot in a very erotic way, though.
Because it has nothing to do with necrophilia, which is the thing that is sexy in the film. The thing
is, but you don't see it because the film stock is not good enough, she's pissing on a dead bird.
You've also got food and sex scenes juxtaposed, was this conscious?
Yes, this is one of the things that was actually already in the script. There is the shot from
living meat to dead meat. You see the dead meat in the pan and then you see the other dead meat
hanging on the wall, which is the corpse.
There is a scene in the film where Rob is lying in the bath and when he's under the water, it's almost
like he's pretending to be dead.
When he kills the cat and he's sad that Beatrice has left him, I was playing around with the idea
that the audience might think that he killed himself. A n d that should be some kind of hint for the
climax already, that he's willing to kill himself.
When Monika goes to dig up the body in Nekromantik II, she's in full make-up, short skirt, i.e. the
clothes that you wouldn't wear if you were going to exhume a corpse.
But she's going to dig up her lover, so she makes herself nice.
But when you see the shots, she's not filmed in an erotic way.
You can see her lips, her legs.
But these aren't conventional feminine shots, you shoot her hands and feet more erotically...
They are more like peeks. I think it's erotic, its only foreplay and she is dressed erotically and that
should be enough I think. I was afraid to switch over to the exploitation stuff. I wanted Monika as
an actress to be taken seriously and not like some piece of meat, so I only took maybe 'safe' close-ups
Also in this film we used 16mm with a not-so-mobile camera, so we couldn't get so close.
The film shows how much work it is to be a necrophile. She has to undress the body and wash it and so
on. You could have shown this in a glamorous way.
I was going for kind of a documentary style in the movie. It's always this idea of those things that
you see on the screen could just happen in the flat next to you and you wouldn't even notice, so I like
to shoot very banal and normal things. You only see the result because the characters don't feel the

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