Der Samurai

Till Kleinert's film debut can be classified as a horror movie, albeit decidedly weird. Jakob (Michel Diercks), a young cop in a small burg in eastern Germany, is constantly being belittled as a wuss by the local motorcycle toughs. While he's out in the nearby woods putting out meat to lure a wolf that has been bothering the townsfolk, Jakob encounters a wild-haired transvestite wearing a silky white gown who wields a sword like a Japanese master and is not hesitant about using it on the necks of people who annoy him. Any notion of coherent narrative pretty much flies out the window as Jakob pursues this murderous figure, who may or may not be either a manifestation of the wolf's animal urges or some inexplicable mirror-image of the callow virginal cop, conjured up to force Jakob to abandon his inhibitions and embrace his true self. The latter part of the movie will offer some gratification to genre buffs—in the form of decapitations galore—and there is one sexually explicit shot that certainly suggests a homoerotic subtext. But even though it features committed performances along with a few striking images, Der Samurai ends up being a bewilderingly feverish fantasy that poses a lot more questions than it answers. Not a necessary purchase. (F. Swietek)