Die Bielefeld Verschwörung

"Die Bielefeldverschwörung" is a student project ... by design students, not any sort of film school. This shows and not in a good way. It's OK that a couple of people who don't particularly care about movie-making or know much about it got together and had some fun with a Red One. It's not OK that they actually believe to have created anything of value and expect people to enjoy it. I have seen some really really bad movies before but this is something else entirely, it's in another league, it's not even a bad movie because any movie has a plot, maybe a bad one, has actors, maybe bad ones, and has the ability to create a certain illusion that you witnesses a story being told, although you might not enjoy it. The botch at hand however, that for a lack of a better word I'll call by the usual terms nonetheless, has none of this.

All of the lead actors and almost all of the supporting actors lack even the faintest hint of screen presence or charisma and even the few people that do would have profited from several takes the director could have chosen from. The script seems to be written by a twelve-year-old with an attention span of five lines. The editing helps a lot to understand even less of the little story that's going on. Lighting and camera are only sub-par and thus far from the abysmal standard of the rest of the movie. Character development is not the right word to denote the sudden changes in behaviour the characters exhibit, it's more as if large parts of them suffer from dissociative identity disorder. I never knew it was contagious. I heard that the people responsible for the sound editing bailed out a couple of days before the movie's release so that part's at least not yet another sign of the lack of ability and love for their work from the filmmakers. The sound does however work to destroy the last bit of illusion and makes the whole thing feel like a bad wedding video. You can actually hear every single cut. What you sometimes can't hear is what the actors say because the background noise is so loud. This would actually be the worst part of the whole movie, if it wasn't for the many moments in which screenwriters and actors try to be funny. The combination of poor jokes and lousy timing by grotty actors driven to such extremes is really nothing anyone should ever have to witness.

Normally I judge a film by the filmmakers' attention to detail. The makers of this film didn't pay any attention to any part of their unspeakable spawn. They just snotted it on the big screen and garnished it with an unfathomable hubris and narcissism when presenting themselves in the media that one has to have seen to believe it.

The producers probably spent most of their 60,000 € budget (the product placement is more intrusive than in "I, Robot") on moving staff and equipment to Greece which was absolutely unnecessary plot-wise and even detrimental to the film itself. For one thing the locations – whose choice and local colour were about the only strong points of the movie as long as it actually remains in Bielefeld – become bromidic during this part and for another, one gets the impression that the only reason to let the film play in Greece was that the staff wanted a free holiday. Had they instead spent some of the money on ever doing second takes, say when people stumble or actors struggle with their lines halfway through a scene, that would have been money well spent. So they spent it to pay them a vacation, which is fair enough. But they shouldn't expect us to care about a movie they themselves care so little about.

So one question remains: Is this the next "Plan 9 from Outer Space"? Unfortunately, not even that. Where the latter trash classic took itself seriously and failed miserably in every possible detail, "Die Bielefeldverschwörung" can't decide whether they want to be self-deprecating or flashy, resulting in a movie that is neither unintentionally comical nor actually tongue-in-cheek but an embarrassing hybrid in which you can't ever be sure if something was meant to be stupid or is in fact the result of the actual incompetence of the people involved.