Cinema
Asphalt
Harald Röbbeling · 1951
Synopsis
Vienna, around 1950. Five stories that do not intersect, each bearing the first name of the person it follows: Erika, a teenager who dances in a dive; Walter, a boy who works for a brutal butcher; Gabriele, a pregnant student with no money; Karl, a disabled boy full of resentment; Helli, a child whom everyone exploits. The material comes from Viennese police files.
Context
The film was released in Vienna on 19 June 1951. It is built in five independent episodes, shot in back courtyards and alleys with many amateurs, and claims to draw its material from police and social-welfare archives; its manner recalls Italian neorealism. Johanna Matz, eighteen, plays her second film role in it. It appeared in Germany at the beginning of 1952 under the title Die Minderjährigen.
Who it is for
Five episodes that do not join up and can be taken separately. The film shows the prostitution of minors and a rape within the family, without evasion.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the first attempt at neorealism in Austrian cinema, and seen today as a document on postwar youth.
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