In LOVE STEAKS a dominant kitchen aid softens an introverted masseuse and it gets a bit messy in the end. Jakob Lass, the successful representative of the so-called German mumblecore (which was nominated for the German Film Prize in 2014), has made a punky successor with TIGER GIRL. A figure gets someone else to come out of their shell yet again but this time it’s two women. Good girl Maggie (blonde Maria Dragus) is struggling with her a police exam and wants to spend the half year till her second attempt with training at a private security firm. But when she meets aggressive, anti-social thug Tiger (brunette Ella Rumpf) things get extreme. Tiger gives Maggie the nickname Vanilla because she’s far too sweet: “you just have to say what you want, then you’ll get it,” she thinks. She doesn’t know that the harmless student will soon become much more than the mentor can handle.

A lot of TIGER GIRL is focused on the sheer joy of destruction, getting wild, and transgressing limits. It’s often incredibly funny and altogether anarchistic. When Tiger steals from the supermarket or casually kick a rearview mirror, it’s pretty harmless. The friends race through Berlin in countless street scenes stirring up a vernissage or defying executory officers. Vanilla and Tiger in their security uniforms almost come across like Alex and his droogs in female form. They force a man to strip, steal from the unsuspecting on Tempelhof field, and give people knuckle sandwiches: what’s most important is being out of control.
It’s all a bit like FIGHT CLUB, especially in the beginning when Tiger drops in on Maggie’s life like a Tyler Durdenesque fever dream. But by the last third Jakob Lass anchors the relationship in reality when Vanilla keeps getting more extreme and even manages to overwhelm Tiger. Consequences now play a concrete role where before they didn’t. But the rude main characters in TIGER GIRL remain nebulous till the very end. Both of them have almost no past to speak of and Tiger could very well by the symbolic feline predator inside Maggie.

An action improv film like TIGER GIRL could not be possible to make without modern digital camera technology which is very current in new German independent cinema. The 90 minutes of LOVE STEAK was made from 70 hours of raw material and the case is similar in TIGER GIRL. There’s no plot in the classic sense (just a subplot about two drug dealers) and the finished product has loose common which is reliant on countless jump cuts. More than any other genre, the works of improv filmmakers is created in the editing room.

Christian Horn

Translation: Elinor Lewy