This week at the movies: Ascend

Punks and neo-Nazis – it's hard to imagine a sharper contrast in worldview and politics. In "Ascend," the directorial debut of actresses Martina Schöne-Radunski and Lana Cooper, this contrast becomes the starting point for a highly unconventional story: Konnie (Céci Chuh) is the singer of a neo-Nazi band - but she’s also a feminist. With slogans like "The future of National Socialism is female" and the idea of "queer fascism," however, she is increasingly rubbing her fellow ideologues the wrong way. Ironically, it is in the awkward anarcho-punk Rudi (Alexander Merbeck) that she seems to find someone who can understand her ideas. However, Rudi has plans of his own: he wants to infiltrate Konnie's clique and finally win the recognition of his radical left-wing friends with a bomb attack … With a sharp eye and an anarchic delight in breaking taboos, Martina Schöne-Radunski and Lana Cooper tell the story of two people who stand on the fringes of their respective scenes - and are willing to risk everything to belong again. What begins as an absurd encounter between two outsiders develops into a bitter confrontation with group dynamics and the mechanisms of extremist circles. And it is precisely the seemingly improvised aesthetic in the style of German mumblecore that gives this refreshingly unconventional film an atmosphere that straddles realism and stylization.