Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes is so atmospherically and aesthetically coherent that you’d think director Kevin Kopacka has been doing it forever. It is only his second feature film. With him he won many prizes at festivals. Rightly so: This indie hit is among the many Eberhofer thrillers and radio tidbits the best thing that could have happened to German film.
The film opens with a car ride to nowhere. You have to think of the Shining. Although there is no Dies Irae from the clouds, there is constant nagging in the car. He, the complainer, is Dieter (Frederik von Lüttichau), an obnoxious egomaniac. She is Margot (Luisa Taraz), sensitive wife and rich heiress to a castle. That’s where they want to go. When they arrive, Dieter makes one in the basement spooky discovery: a figure in the dark. Then he loses the car keys. They’re stuck for tonight. They soon realize that they are not alone, because someone is watching their bickering spectacle closely.
Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes surprises with a twist that nobody sees coming
Kopacka pulls out all the stops right from the start. The optics are playful, the grainy image sometimes appears feverishly washed out, sometimes cold and clear. It could be from the 70’s. What initially looks like an unnecessary trick soon turns out to be ingenious stylistic device.
Mild spoilers follow for the first half hour of the film.
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Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes
Kopacka and co-author Lili Villányi turn everything upside down at minute 30. After a extremely brutal scene it suddenly says: “Good people, end of shooting”. This is announced by Eva (Anna Platen), assistant and friend of director Gregor Grause (Jeff Wilbusch). Everything that has happened so far has only happened in the film-within-the-film. Dieter becomes actor Klaus, Margot becomes Lilith. Take that, Tyler Durden!
There are several tricks like this in Dawn Breaks Behind Her Eyes. They are ironic tips that give the impression that Kopacka doesn’t take himself too seriously as a director. Or at least: As if he wanted to criticize the director cult, which sees films as the creation of a single genius on the director’s chair. He still quotes Stanley Kubrick. There are scenes here and there that are reminiscent of Eyes Wide Shut, such as those Orgy with the many masks and even more bare skin.
Kopacka and his team create intense sequences that show intoxicated, sweating, intertwined bodies. It’s a bit reminiscent of Suspiria, a bit of Climax. Good this way. Because these are moments that German cinema should also have produced at some point.
Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes blurs dream and reality
“Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes is about being trapped”, said Kopacka about his film in an interview. For the possibility of breaking out, for that breaking cycles. The path of assistant director Eva is described most vividly in the film: she has to help her friend, the director, through creative crises. Above all, she has to realize that this will only bring her suffering in the long run and finally realize that something has to change. She has to break out, also from this castle.
© Crossbones GmbH
Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes
Dream sequences take you into her inner life. Here a peacock struts through the picture, there sits a white rabbit whose fur Eva is stroking. As the title of the horror film suggests, she must wake up from this dream.
Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes shows what the German horror film can do – if you let it
Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes is a film within a film, playing with his audience. This somewhat weird genre lump turns out to be a pearl. It starts out as a haunted house horror film and morphs into a self-critical, self-convoluted meta-piece with beautiful visuals. In the end everything comes together and the film makes one thing clear: In this country you don’t have to hide from American competition like The Witch or Hereditary – The Legacy. So, after sanctuaries and sleep, there’s Dawn Breaks Behind The Eyes. The German film is on fire, if you let him. And the representatives of the film funding should slowly understand that.
In Germany, Tiberius has the rights to Hinter den Augen die Twilight (this is the provisional German title) secured. At the December 15, 2022 The horror film is scheduled to be released digitally and then on DVD and Blu-ray on January 13th.
Have you seen Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes yet? Did the twist knock you off your stool too?