THE MOVING PICTURE BOY ARCHIVE

BOCKSHORN

Title: Bockshorn
English translation: The literal meaning of the title is 'Goat's horn', but it is a phrase used in German to mean scaring, unsettling or intimidating someone, "putting the wind up" someone, as we might say in English. This is a description of what happens to the character of Sauly in the movie, as a result of the suggestion that his guardian angel is no longer protecting him.
Year of release: 1984
Director: Frank Beyer
Country of Production: GDR; this is another superb film from DEFA, the state-owned film studio of the German Democratic Republic.
Genre: Drama
Length: 1 hour, 42 minutes
Language: German
Availability: A good digital file with English subtitles is available.
Boy actors: Jeff Dominiak plays Sauly (the younger of the boys, about 13, right on the production photo below), and Bert Löper plays Mick (below, left), a slightly older teen who is Sauly's companion of the road as well as his protector.

Synopsis
Sauly and Mick are two teenage drifters who go on a trip across a fictional country that seems identical to America except that everyone speaks German, their aim being to get to the coast and see the ocean. On the way, they are met by a man called Landolfi, who tells them that he has sold Sauly's guardian angel to another man in the city of Prince. As Sauly gets increasingly unsettled by the thought that he is no longer being protected by his guardian angel, the pair make a detour to Prince, but find it impossible to find the man they are looking for. Eventually, however, they once again come across Landolfi, and Mick tries to get him to admit to Sauly that the whole thing was a joke.

This was the first time that DEFA was able to film in America, and the movie includes scenes shot in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and on New York's Fifth Avenue; as well as in Cuba and Bulgaria. (Studio shots were done in Babelsberg, Potsdam.)

The film was based on the 1973 novel of the same name by German writer Christoph Meckel (1935-2020).

A trailer for the film can be viewed on Youtube here.

Screenshots