Shakespeare in Berlin. The intrigues of “Richard III.” On the streets of Neukölln. Instead of the English royal houses, large Arab families meet. At first the Burhan Qurbanis approach sounds “No animal. So wild.“Great on – seductive, sexy, ambitious, as you are used to by the director of“ Berlin Alexanderplatz ”. But whether the allegory actually works and, especially almost two and a half hours, is on another sheet.
Not Richard, but Raschida is the main character, a modern, female version of a classic male fabric? This approach is also exciting – and, like so much, seems underdeveloped in this film. Large moments succeed Qurbani, sometimes his film works like a clever game with clichés and stereotypes. Then again it looks like a striving of significant piece of cinema that promises pure excitement on the paper, but then often acts like a hip-hop video with poorly imitated poses.
Raschida (Kenda Hmeidan) pursues their own plans – and they will still provide a lot of bloodshed!
Finally there seems to be calm between the Yorks and the Lancastars, two large Arab families from Berlin. The lawyer Raschida (Kenda Hmeidan), the youngest daughter of the York house, has a flaming speech for peace in court, but he is brittle. Her brother Ghazi (Camill Jamall) is supposed to be in prison for soothing, in the tower, she is supposed to marry Ali Lancaster (Ibrahim al-Khalil).
So her brother Imad (Mehdi Nebbou) has decided, the leader of the clan, who, together with his married German wife Elisabeta (Verena Altenberger), forge big plans: a huge mosque is to be created, as a mosque with the Mall of York. But Raschida has its own plans that will bring a lot of blood and spoiling over the houses and their members …
The total excess
“Two families split the underworld of Berlin”, it says at one point over the Arab large families, which are brutal gang wars and earn with blackmail, drugs, protection money and murder coal without end. A German filmmaker or better: A Caucasian German filmmaker could hardly dare: Slen in sensual pictures of the excess, migrant-connoted people who behave just as AfD supporters and other right-wing populists probably imagine .
Burhan Qurbani is also a German citizen, was born in Erkelenz in North Rhine-Westphalia and has Afghan parents. If he now in his fourth feature film “No animal. So wildly. ”Consciously plays with the clichés and stereotypes, which are all too often spread in the press about people with a migration background, this is initially interesting. To overcome clichés in order to pull them into ridicule, to expose them, could work as an approach if it did not get stuck in the beginning. It's an idea, a good one, but what follows? How does the starting point become a functioning allegory that tells something about the German, especially the Berlin reality, as Qurbani apparently has in mind?
He has “no animal. So wild. ”Already demonstrated in his remake of“ Berlin Alexanderplatz ”.
One problem: Berlin does not appear in the film, apart from one or two mentions on the soundtrack. The settings remain interchangeable instead: They are dark, dim bars or brothels that seem so darkly illuminated as if someone had looked at “the godfather”. In addition, a wasteland in the shadow of a motorway feeder that could be anywhere. Similar to the parking garage, beautifully brutalist and gray, which is reminiscent of Christopher Nolan at the latest when motorcycles shut down the ramps. In addition, it makes the soundtrack “Bäm” that even a bombast fan like Hans Zimmer would enjoy it.
Qurbani studied his role models exactly, sometimes imitates in strong pictures that could also come from American gangster films. At least if you don't just seem to be stilted and wanted again, especially since the script can never really decide whether the characters should speak in Shakespeare's hexameters or in contemporary slang. Most of the time, Qurbani and his co-author Enis Maci chose the former, which sometimes works more, sometimes less coherent, sometimes growing, sometimes silly.
Still more
From the role of women in the world of Arab migrants, “no animal is supposed to. So wildly. ”Tell – among other things, you have to say better with this exuberant film. Arranged marriages are talking about the war that is a male thing, while it is the women who stay at home, complain about the dead and ultimately create peace. But Rachida turns the skewer, she is the bloodthirsty in this game, herself urges her nurse to breastfeed as a contract killer. Again and again these converted gender relationships work as if they are developing into an interesting comment from the present.
Countless references sprinkle qurani, lets his film begin and end in a desert area of the Middle East, there are references to flight and war, even Franz and Reinhold, the main characters from his previous film “Berlin Alexanderplatz”. But why? “Why not?”, The answer seems to be a lot, why not do a further reference rather than try to tell some more clearly. So “no animal ends. So wild. ”As he started: in a cacophony of pictures and references that in the best case sweeping, powerful and staged, but again and again appear confused and arbitrary. An ambitious attempt to reinterpret Shakespeare, which, however, repeatedly fails due to his own high -tied ambitions.
Conclusion: In the attempt to move Shakespeare's tragedy “Richard III.” To the present, Burhan Qurbani succeeds in his gangsterepos “No animal. So wild. ”Impressive scenes and massive images, which, however, hardly join a round whole, but rather threaten to losing references in an overly confused game.
We have “no animal. So wildly. ”As part of the Berlinale 2025, where it was shown in the Berlinale Special section.