Mädchen mit Gewalt

The Brutes

In their free time, two middle-aged men, Werner and Mike, avidly pursue their hobby of chasing women. At a go-kart track, they encounter a group of students. In beer-fuelled high spirits, they make plans to meet for a night-time swim. But the two buddies actually take one of the group, Alice, to a gravel pit. It becomes clear that she is not the first woman that Werner and Mike have raped during their prowls. The next morning, Alice threatens to file charges against Werner. Mike gleefully describes the humiliating consequences that would have for Alice, turning her well and truly into a victim … 

"You want it too – all of it". From the start, the two latent psychopaths display an attitude that these days would be dismissed as "toxic bro culture" but which, in the film, escalates in shows of force to reach a dangerous pinnacle. Told entirely from the point of view of the perpetrators, "The Brutes" is inevitably shaped by what we now call the male gaze. That gives it a far more dystopian aspect than later "rape and revenge" films fed by feminist fantasies. But also a more realistic touch.

Source: 75. Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin (Catalogue)