Dorfpunks (2009)

It is the summer of 1984 in the small Baltic Sea town of Schmalenstedt in Schleswig-Holstein. Malte Ahrens lives with his old-left parents in a farmhouse. After dropping out of school, he starts training as a potter. When the punk movement from England reaches Schmalenstedt, somewhat belatedly, Malte is swept up in it and calls himself “Roddy Dangerblood.” From then on, being punk defines Roddy’s life. Hanging out with his friends Fliegevogel, Sid, Flo, Piekmeier and Günni at their forest hideout, with campfires, drinking and witty conversation; expertly provoking Schmalenstedt’s narrow-minded, respectable society; and, not least, getting into physical confrontations with the long-established local farm youth are all part of the routine. But Roddy has to realize that being punk among forests and meadows can get pretty monotonous, since the bourgeois conformists he hates so much barely notice his rebellion. In fact, the only people in town who recognize Roddy as a punk are the right-wingers. They regularly beat him up, which his extremely liberal parents watch with growing concern. Though otherwise willing to understand just about anything, they can no longer keep up and ask Roddy whether this is what being punk means after he comes home yet again badly bruised from a fight. Once more annoyed by the monotony of his everyday life, Roddy decides to start a punk band with his friends Fliegevogel, Sid, Flo, Piekmeier and Günni. His buddies are thrilled. After a long search, they are over the moon to have found a band name: “Warhead.” While Sid immediately starts thinking up lyrics with as much depth as possible, Roddy just wants to have fun. The inexperienced musicians find their first rehearsals difficult as a result. The band name also changes almost every day, and their first gig, just a few days after the band is formed, promptly ends in disaster. But the band is far from giving up. Their second concert is an even bigger fiasco than the first. Once again, the question arises: is this what being punk means? As the band heads toward its end, the friendship and convictions of the village punks are put to a real test. Is bourgeois life beginning for them now, or will something else happen? In the end, Roddy suddenly arrives at his very own understanding of punk.