Purely Joyful Movie!

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

What begins as a feel-good-human-interest story turns into a mystery, then a tragedy, and ultimately an outrage.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

"Wholetrain" is a German 85-minute movie from 2006, so this one is over a decade old already and here we have the first of only 2 feature films so gar by writer and director Florian Gaag. But for a rookie effort he got a pretty decent cast together as you will find names in the list of actors here like Matschenz, Kempter and M'Barek who are still pretty famous, probably even more than back then, here in Germany today. Sprayers are a crucial subject at the core of this film, but the longer it goes the more you will realize that this is really not at all the essence here, what the film is about, even if references subjects cloely related to this activity on several occasions, like most of all trouble with the law and that's also with what the film is about to start. Anyway, it is not a very long film by any means and that is good in my opinion because the contents were nothing I ever really warmed up to. Or the characters. And I don't think that has to do with my non-existing interest in the subject of spray-painting and some of the culture that comes with it like for example the hip hop music. The actors probably tried their best to make it work and this is one reason too why the film is not a failure, but the script just wasn't on a level to let them shine and get us curious about what happens to them next. And this is true from start to finish. The story-telling and editing did not seem smooth at all and maybe it shows the director's lack of experience. You really need to use this as a big excuse in order to give a positive recommendation to this movie. From a neutral perspective, however, I just can't. I hoped this would be better judging from its imdb rating, but it rarely lives up to its premise. Watch something else instead.

Considering that it was a nightmarish experience for me to follow a group of juvenile delinquents onto their ego trip to self-destruction, I have to admit that this film is surprisingly well made. The script, the acting, the graffiti, the locations, the music, they all gel. We always get the impression that the director is close and true to his subjects, rather than posing or acting as a social worker with a camera. On his invitation we get to follow a reckless bunch of young graffiti artists around in an unnamed German megalopolis (represented here mostly by Warszawa, Poland). By competing with another crew they are forced to produce ever bigger and more outrageous graffiti, until they face the ultimate goal: to vandalise, I mean adorn, a whole subway train with their spray-painted imagery. At the same time, they are fighting an even harder battle to keep the rest of their dismal lives in check. Dead-end jobs, nagging girlfriends, the law, the parentals. Especially the leader of the pack, David, has to make up his mind whether he wants to grow up and come clean or continue on his albeit exciting path to nowhere.For that opportunity to ride with the colourful crew, you have to buy into their machism and denial of the fact that their shtick is mostly plain and simple vandalism (and I'm not talking about putting a mural on some concrete bridge pillar).

What a funny comment by Gattler. He claims he knows Munich quite well yet hasn't seen any Graffiti there? Wow. Where did he hang out? With catholic church youth groups? Sad, sad, sad. Sheer cluelessness. The Hip Hop scene in Munich developed rapidly in the mid eighties. Maybe the near US Army Bases, for which Run DMC performed as early as 1985, were part of the reason. Fact is, back then not only amazing Hip Hop clubs like "Area", "Eastside" or "California" spread the word and had you shake your booty to hard beats ( while most of the rest of Germany listened to U2), but more important: the famous Fleamarket at the Dachauerstreet in Munich quickly became one of the hotspots of the best writers not only in Germany, but in Europe. On its walls one could find astounding pieces from artists like Mode 2 and other legends from Europe's other graffiti capitals like Amsterdam and Paris. In those times at least 1 out of 5 trains in Munich were bombed with graffiti pieces. Wholecars, wholetrains or just throw- ups...you name it. The scene was alive like no other in Germany. Back then we used to make fun of Berlin. The only Graffiti they had over there were the political scribblings on the wall. Hip Hop? Hamburg and Cologne were alive too, but back then....Munich ruled. This was the time director- writer Florian Gaag grew up in Munich and became one of the leading spray can artists of the town. And that is the reason his movie " wholetrain" is the most authentic, passionate, relentless and wonderful film about this still overlooked subculture out there. The movie doesn't explain much, it doesn't apologize, it doesn't portray the writers as nice, harmless guys and it doesn't pretend to give any social reasons. It just rolls and shows you how it is. If you have real love for Hip Hop, this movie is for you.

Munich - in part. but the film doesn't want to say, in which city the action takes place. in a convincing way the film can give idea of the German adolescent graffiti scene. the plot, well - as it's like: to prettify trains with cool graffiti, stands simply contrarily to the aesthetic opinions of the government authority. thus one leads a shade existence, always in conflict with the police. but Tino, David, Elyas and their new disciple Achim want to become the greatest.and then the young life is anyway crisis-vibrated: love, smoking weed and fighting "cliques". in addition: hip hop and graffiti styles.overall: it rules.