Prince In Hell

Short discribtion:

Stefan and Jockel are two gay punks hanging out, living, and loving in Kreuzberg. Times were different back then – easier, it seems. Staying at the Wagenplatz at Adalbertstraße, Stefan, Jockel and their queer friends seem to be living a punk utopia that suggests freedom and political autonomy until Jockel gets addicted to heroin and things change dramatically. Michale Stock’s film debut is told in the form of a fairy tale about a prince who ends up in hell before slowly drifting into the dependence of substances that control his life more than he does. A beautiful document of its time, a matter-of-fact manifesto of gay punk culture and an artistic narrative of dependency, PRINCE IN HELL is cult classic of Berlin art films that everyone should have seen at least once in their lifetime.

The story is set soon after the reunification of West and East Germany, and is about the disintegrating relationship between Jockel a political activist and Stefan a heroin junkie, and their involvement with a bisexual Micha. A 2nd plot line is concerned with Micha’s young son Sascha, and his life in a rundown world of drugs and poverty. His fascination with the creepy, exhibitionist puppeteer Firlefanz, whose grotesque puppets enact a gay fairy tale paralleling the relationship of Stefan and Jockel. Central to the disintegration of these characters is the drug dealer Ingolf, who ‚pulls their strings‘ with heroin, instead of puppet wires. The music comes from volume members of the „Einstürzende Neubauten“.

 

DVD at Salzgeber.shop: https://salzgeber.shop/startseite/1873-prinz-in-hoelleland.html

 

Hell is us“ written by Axel Schock for „Sissy“

„… You don’t have to be a believer or dead to end up in hell. Hell can also be found in this world and among the living. In Michael Stock’s debut film, it is located in Kreuzberg around the Kottbusser Tor subway station, in the midst of the local drug and squatter scene. The Berlin Wall is already history, but the traces of division are far from being erased. There is still plenty of wasteland and open spaces between the run-down apartment buildings – and room for alternative, left-wing lifestyles. Such as the fragile and ultimately doomed gay love triangle in „Prinz in Hölleland“, which is set in a left-wing autonomous trailer park.

They are united in their contempt for the capitalist system and its mechanisms. But when it comes to understanding their own individual freedom, Stefan and Jockel’s ideas diverge for quite some time. Stefan wants loyalty and commitment in his relationship. He is not interested in „impersonal orgasms“. His partner Jockel, on the other hand, is driven to live out exactly this kind of sexual freedom. Are these two guys watching Jockel and Stefan from a car undercover? Or are they just leather guys? Jockel calls their bluff. They actually follow him into a basement of an old building and Jockel lets himself be used by the two men with lust and bliss in his eyes. Meanwhile, Stefan keeps a lookout on the street. Or simply waits until it’s over.

However great Stefan’s love for Jockel and his care for him may be, their relationship already has deep cracks. The fact that they both start an affair with the Swiss Wagenburg resident Micha at the same time seems at first glance like a reconciliatory compromise that could fulfill these different needs and cover up the burning jealousy. But the downward spiral can no longer be stopped. In retrospect, it must seem grotesque to Stefan that they roam the streets of Kreuzberg together to put up posters warning of heroin dealers in the neighborhood – because Jockel himself has long been hooked on needles. „Prinz in Hölleland“, filmed almost exactly 30 years ago, now seems out of date in many respects. The debut of the then 25-year-old Michael Stock is set in places that have long since disappeared as a result of urban planning and political developments, and with them – with a few exceptions – the attempts at autonomous housing projects and alternative, non-commercial (gay) bars such as the legendary „Café Anal“. In this trashy, glittering bar, queer punks, anarchists and queers sit together over a beer and Andreja Schneider, who was hardly known at the time – she became a permanent member of the Pfister siblings‘ ensemble almost after the end of filming – grunts a „chanson about drinking“ with a butch, aggressive attitude.

A film like „Prinz in Hölleland“ also seems to come from an all too distant time with its imaginative, at times even self-exhausting free form, which was probably only possible in those Berlin years in between after the fall of the Berlin Wall. To make a respectable and by no means inexpensive film with a small budget – allegedly just 130,000 Deutschmarks – requires not only a great deal of improvisational talent, but also good contacts in the independent artist scene and their desire for self-exploitation. Michael Stock probably learned how to do this from his patron and teacher Rosa von Praunheim. Stock himself plays the leading role of Jockel. Alongside newcomers (Andreas Stadler in his screen debut) and convincing amateur actors such as Stefan Laarmann (Stefan), the cast also includes Harry Baer, a seasoned actor from the Fassbinder family. Baer plays one of the guys Stefan warns against on his self-made posters: a sleazy drug dealer who stashes all kinds of drugs in his well-kept old apartment. One who sometimes makes consumers pay with sexual services when they are short of cash.

rallel to the love and drug drama about Jockel, Micha and Stefan, we experience a puppet show – performed by a half-naked court jester in medieval costume. The fairy tale he performs about a poor miller’s boy who wants to free a prince from the power of the sorcerer Ätschibätschi and the effects of his white poison mirrors and comments on the main plot. After all, the fairy tale ends well: The prince and the miller’s boy are allowed to walk down the aisle. For Jockel, Stefan and Micha, however, the story has no happy ending. And even for the cheeky, increasingly threatening puppeteer, the trio of authors have come up with a surprising twist that blends the narrative levels. The understanding of freedom that Jockel, Stefan, Micha and their fellow communicators pursue has long since turned out to be a (self-)lie. Because this freedom does not release you from responsibility for your own life and that of your loved ones. Hell is not the others, as Jean-Paul Sartre’s oft-quoted, often misunderstood saying goes. In Michael Stock’s drama, Jockel has prepared hell for himself and his lover…“

 

„Prince in Hölleland“ International Film Festival (selection):

1993-2020, officially selected “in the program for various international and LGBTI film festivals, retrospectives, colleges and universities: WP Max Ophüls Film Festival, Sundance International Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Outfest Los Angeles, LGTBI FF Chicago, Boston, Washington, Seattle, Austin , St. Peterburg, Kiev, Moscow, Osaka, Tokyo, Tel Aviv, Reykjavik, Stockholm, Upsala, Oslo, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, London, Paris, Milan, Turino, Lisbon, Madrid, Barcelona, Athens, Zurich, Locarno… and many more.

Crew:

Directed by Michael Stock

Written by Michael Stock, Stefan Laarmann, and Wolfram Haack

Cinematography by Lorenz Haarmann

Edited by Uwe Lauterkorn

Sound by Margarete Heitmüller

Music by Tom Stern, Alex Hacke, Chrislo Haas, Ash Wednesday, Andreas Vetter, Alexander Christou

Puppets and Puppet Theatre Design by Moss Fitzpatrick, Michael Stock

Director Assistant Bastian Krondorfer

Cast:

Michael Stock as Jockel

Stefan Laarmann as Stefan

Andreas Stadler as Micha

Wolfram Haack as Firlefanz (the Jester)

Nils-Leevke Schmidt as Sascha

Simone Spengler as Sabine

Harry Baer as Ingolf

Andréja Schneider as the Singer

Agnes Müller as Women in Bar

Uwe Lauterkorn as Man in Bar

Gerd Kortrezwa as Tramper

Heny Fenrich as 1.Letherman

Dirk Ludigs as 2. Letherman

Alexander Schröder as 1. Killer

Oliver Picot as 2. Killer

Pat Schneble as 1.Tunte

Volker Paravacini as 2. Tunte

Elese Elsterhof as 1. Dragqueen

Markus Zerki as Drunken Proll

Paule as Junky

Susanne Held as Junky

Nicole Schöner as Junky

Daniel Stump as Junky