Institute History
Description
Just expelled from school, Janosch trashes his mother’s book-filled house and sets out on his scooter to find his older pal, Koma, who has moved to the town of Dortmund. Tall, muscular, and violent, Koma works at a menial job in a beer-bottling factory by day. By night he is a star of the skinhead scene: kick boxer, singer, all-round beer drinker, and street brawler.
And after a night of carousing and fighting, he returns to his well-ordered apartment and Sandra, a pretty, pregnant, peroxide blonde. Janosch moves in with Koma, and as he tries to fit in with his new family, comes to shave his head, starts drinking and brawling with the skins, acquires a girlfriend, and loses his virginity. But soon there is trouble in paradise. The punks confront the skins, and Koma’s secret hideout in the woods is destroyed. And when Janosch goes to get a tattoo from Zottel, a gentle, long-haired, fire-eating hippie, emotional forces are set in motion which lead to the shocking climax.
Shot in a superbly artistic black-and-white photography, Oi! WARNING combines action, image, and a perfect ear for dialogue in a powerful study of skinhead subculture, male tribal violence, and the instability of the male character as it matures from adolescent to adult: sexual tension, possible excursions into homoeroticism, need for acceptance, and drive for a distinctive identity. Also remarkable is the insightful contrast the film draws between male and female desires. Oi! WARNING is a stunning feature-film debut for both its young co-directors, Dominik and Benjamin Reding.