The Medic

Konstantin, student of medicine and volunteer paramedic, is a young man with plenty of hang-ups. His fellow students think he´s a weirdo without a girlfriend, and they often tease him for that reason. Then one day a young woman with self-destructive tendencies stumbles into his life. One evening in the bar Konstantin goes to, she dances to Falco´s song “Jeanny” while heavily intoxicated, undresses and then collapses. Motivated by a combination of savior complex and fascination, Konstantin takes her home. When he asks her name the next morning, the woman merely shrugs. “Then you´re Jeannie,” he says spontaneously. “Like the one in the bottle.”

The woman, or “Jeanny”, the lonely girl in the controversial song, is in Konstantin´s mind more like the genie in “I Dream of Jeannie,” making wishes come true when let out of the bottle and freed of her constraints. For a while it seems as if two lost souls have found each other. But when Konstantin crosses a line with her, she lashes out. When she approaches him later, including physically, he instinctively pulls back and looks for something to protect himself. Until one day, after having enough of his constant refusals, she leaves. Then Konstantin runs into her again. While working as a paramedic he picks her up, once again she´s blind drunk, and he falls into her arms in the ambulance — and lets it happen. He wants the stability she provides, “There´s someone who needs you,” and she wants the same thing from him, even if only for the time being.

Mark Gerstorfer tells a story about intimacy. Most of the time a moving camera is near Konstantin — punctuated by static shots that give the audience intimate views from a distance, though without making a voyeur of them. Instead, the viewer is turned into an observer and companion who must first catch up with and comprehend him.

(Markus Prasse)