How scary can a stranger or a neighbor be? "Next Door" tries to tell viewers not to provoke strangers or neighbors who seem insignificant in your life. The audience can always accidentally laugh out loud at some times because of the role, because of the line, because of the bridge, but at some times because of the role, because of the line, because of the bridge section feel cold.
The famous actor Daniel (Daniel Bruch) sits in a stylish apartment in the center of Berlin, and has a beautiful wife and two cute children, who are well-behaved as he travels to shoot movies.
Like the daily life of a winner, but in the day he is ready to fly to London to participate in the important audition of this day changed, early out of the house he went to the corner bar to relax, but encountered a neighbor who was interested in finding a ballast ambush, between the words step by step to lure him to open Pandora's box, the secret forbidden fruit is about to start, is life really as perfect as he thought, everything is under his control?
How scary can a stranger or a neighbor be? I believe that in the past, I have experienced it in many works, such as the Japanese movie "Creepy", such as "The Secret Story of the Widow".
And now the German actor Daniel Bruch, in his first self-directed "Next Door", tries to tell the audience that you really don't provoke strangers or neighbors who seem insignificant in your life.
Even if you may think of hearing from your elders often how beautiful the past times were, how good people were to be close to each other and care for each other, lamenting that modern people only sweep the snow from their own doors and are indifferent to others, so try not to try to express their kindness to others to give good to others.
Because you don't know what kind of ideas the other person is approaching you, because they are likely to really know you better than you do, and it is even more likely that they will ruin your "so-so world" because of it.
Unlike other similar films that use suspense to increase the psychological pressure and oppression of the plot to the audience, or use the bridge arrangement with a sense of impact to add fear and weirdness to the film, and then achieve the effect of making the audience fear the existence of strangers or neighbors, director Daniel Bruch uses a comedy rhythm to carry out a rather wonderful psychological offensive and defensive battle.
Originally thought to be unfocused and somewhat absurd dialogue, as the plot saw that it was a trap set by the neighbor Bruno based on some malicious intentions against the protagonist Daniel, Daniel, who unconsciously stepped into the trap, had to self-destruct according to Bruno's words.
In some ways, Bruno, who lets Daniel move away without any responsibility with just one mouth, may be more terrifying than the terrifying neighbors whose danger forces the protagonist to leave.
The reason why the plot of "Next Door" can be established is due to the setting of director Daniel Bruch's profession and personality to the protagonist.
Daniel is an actor who has won international awards and has strong acting skills, since as a well-known actor, it is not surprising to be recognized by passers-by to talk, and usually in order to show affinity and avoid being labeled with any negative label, he will respond to the "fans" who recognize him, at least not impolite.
On the other hand, from the scene where Daniel misunderstands a couple asking him to take a photo "want to take a picture with him" instead of "taking pictures for them (couples)", Daniel is very confident in his popularity, and the sense of superiority and narcissism of public figures is very strong.
Therefore, Daniel first of all because of his profession makes him less likely to refuse to respond to Bruno, coupled with the vanity and self-esteem generated by his profession and the popularity, coupled with the common sense that people like to be praised rather than criticized, especially in person, all kinds of reasons add up to reduce the probability of this plot not being able to work to almost zero.
Interestingly, director Daniel Bruch let a supporting neighbor take away the dominance that should have been the protagonist, watching Bruno attack in a non-hurried orderly manner, Daniel can be said to be a defensive defeat, from the beginning to the end Daniel can not get back the dominance.
Bruno first praised his acting skills and works to arouse Daniel's interest, so that he was happy to volunteer to start a dialogue with Bruno, and then Bruno slowly changed his tone in an undetectable tone, injecting his disdain into words and sentences bit by bit, and when Daniel found out, it was too late, and he had to bear the other party's derogatory laughter.
When the work is reviewed, Bruno wants to direct the topic to Daniel's private life, just assuming that he has to accept any praise and criticism because he is a "public figure Daniel", so if the other party wants to talk about "private Daniel", he has the right to get up and leave, and there must always be a time when he wants to get the dominance, right? But Daniel thought he had it, but he didn't.
Bruno is like a bottomless master of the Inner Circle, not in a hurry to give Daniel a fatal blow to the first entry into the martial arts, he just has been slowly moving and observing on the edge of the ring, watching the opponent in front of him do not know what he is busy with, punching and kicking from time to time, not only can not hurt him in the slightest, but also made his whole body sweat.
Probably to make this offensive and defensive battle more beautiful, can't only he understand the other party thoroughly, but the other party does not understand him at all, right? Bruno began to talk about himself, his occupation, habits, life, family, and what he was "doing"...
Logically, for a person like Daniel who clearly believes that he is superior to Bruno in terms of status and other parts, he must have no interest in Bruno's life, but today he listened to all of it unusually, and even took the initiative to ask other questions, so that the "illogical but reasonable" plot direction can be accepted by the audience, which has to be changed to praise Bruno's role setting.
It is precisely because Bruno's character setting is very clever, so although it was said earlier that "Next Door" is a wonderful psychological offensive and defensive battle, it can actually be said that Daniel was unilaterally beaten, because Bruno knew Daniel too well, but Daniel did not know Bruno at all.
Bruno knows how to make good use of his chips and advantages, he chooses not to give Daniel a hard time, but to give slowly, slowly to get away with it, and he habitually stops talking at key points, and also cleverly induces Daniel to ask questions about the plot he wants.
In addition, his provocative tone also makes Daniel easily hooked and involuntarily follow Bruno, so there will be many interesting pictures of him leaving the tavern in a handsome way, only to walk a few steps to think that something is wrong and then return to the tavern.
Of course, this was all within Bruno's expectations, so the audience could see him sitting calmly in place, waiting for Daniel to turn back to him, and then the two of them continued the conversation between the words and the secrets.
Director Daniel Bruch through the two roles of Daniel and Bruno to make the whole plot from accidental to inevitable, and even in hindsight may be this day Bruno will be so just in the tavern to wait for Daniel is also in his calculations, after all, he knows Daniel so well, maybe the only thing he did not calculate is that Daniel will come back to beat him after being dumped by his wife.
At the end of the movie, Daniel has moved out of there, and instead of living in it, is another actress who is reading the script, when her figure leaves the picture, the camera faces the window opposite the house, gradually pulling to the left and right, and the moment with the soundtrack is suddenly creepy, because the audience can expect that Daniel's tragedy is about to be staged again...
"People like you can't understand people like us."
This ending also means that Bruno is not specifically targeting Daniel, but "anyone" who lives in that house. His motivation came from his past with his father, and if what he said was true, then the owner of the house in the past was his father, but for some reason he had to leave.
Imagining how unwilling his father would be to be forced away, the dissatisfaction with the system, with the class, with the growing gap between rich and poor that persisted even after the merger of East and West Germany, became a seed planted in Bruno's heart, and what he did was like avenging his father, who had been sacrificed for weighing interests.
He could not afford to return to his father's house, at least he could drive away all the people who had lived there, and in the same amount of pain and embarrassment as they had been treated.
For the first feature film, "Next Door" is a very good movie. Director Daniel Bruch not only has a good grasp of the rhythm, the whole film from the visible plot to the emotions of the feeling, whether it is digging down the secret scandal or the upward stack of anger index, are very staged and layered.
Under the restriction of almost a single scene and a few characters, he still uses only lines and a few twists to achieve a fascinating effect, successfully allowing the audience to concentrate on this battle of words and words.
And one of my own favorite scenes is that, as if not to let Daniel lose too ugly, director Daniel Bruch gives him a chance to fight back and punch Bruno in the face, where Bruno tells Daniel's secret that he doesn't want to know, and his wife appears in the tavern in the next second to kill Daniel by surprise, when everyone thinks she will dump Daniel on the spot, but it doesn't happen.
The couple left the tavern hand in hand as if nothing had happened, leaving Bruno with a face of "how this development is not what he wants", and after walking out of the tavern, his wife directly let go of Daniel's hand and quit Daniel's life without turning his head.
This unexpected arrangement presents this expected plot development, as if to feel the fierceness and humor of director Daniel Bruch.
"Next Door" is a clever and interesting work, although it is not a comedy, of course, the audience can always accidentally laugh out loud at some times because of the character, because of the line, because of the bridge, but at some time because of the role, because of the line, because of the bridge section feel chills.
Director Daniel Bruch not only teased himself in the film that he had played the role of a super movie hero, his wonderful rivalry with Peter Coulter was also the biggest attraction of the movie.