Otomo

The German social melodrama “Otomo” has a fascinating weight. Spare and taut, it follows the story of Frederic Otomo a Cameroon immigrant living in Stuttgart. ... This film, set in 1989, is based on the true story of Otomo’s flight after committing a violent crime and offers dramatic conjecture about the hours before his final encounter with the Stuttgart police. ... The director’s cold-blooded minimalism is abetted by the chilled electrica groove of the scorre by Freundeskreis. It helps to establish the mood of the piece and gradually becomes the pulse as the manhunt for Otomo goes on. “Otomo” is a bleak and powerful work, one we probably need more than ever these days. (Elvis Mitchell, The New York Times, 07.11.2001)

Schlaich puts his gifts at the service of the story, its mood, its implication of powerst hat victimize the protagonist – like the long shots of Otomo seated alone on one end of a bench or of him moving down a cheerless empty street. Schlaich’s work is reminiscent of Wim Wenders and Werner Herzog and Alexander Kluge in the abundant German New Wave of three decades ago. It’s a reminiscence worth having. (Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic, 19.11.2001)

“Otomo” takes on German society! – The movie is about a man who reaches his snapping point. (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 14.12.2001)

The dehumanizing grind of institutionalized and deliberate racism lies at the core of this searing reconstruction of a true-life tragedy. Isaach de Bankolé delivers an intense performance as a silently frustrated refugee named Frederic Otomo, who spent 8 years in Stuttgart without being able to rise above destituation, despite persistent effort and good manners. (Vancouver Courier, 10.01.2000)