Der Bunker is beautiful German surrealism from the first frame. In the opening moment we meet an unnamed German family just as they are sitting down to breakfast. They seem normal enough until we see that their home is an immense, subterranean bunker. A young physics student comes to rent their spare room and in spite of their strange behavior, he decides to stay. Things grow stranger still when the student is guilted into teaching the couple’s middle-aged looking son, Klaus, whom they claim is only 8.

Der Bunker is as strange as a David Cronenberg film and as fun as a Terry Gilliam movie. While each scene grows more bizarre than the last, the characters remain remarkably human. The main thrust of the plot is an absurdist comedy, but there’s a curiously serious examination of child rearing here that demands to be unraveled. Just why they’re determined that Klaus will one day be president of the United States (being German by birth makes this quite impossible) and believe he must be homeschooled to accomplish this, is a the heart of this complicated satire. Der Bunker is rich in both laugh out loud funny moments and deep, German introspection.

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