Mentored by Jessica Hausner and a former assistant to Michael Haneke, German filmmaker Jannis Lenz certainly has the pedigree to announce a bold new talent. Such experience comes through in his feature debut, Oasis, in which three teenagers find a strange sense of community through rituals of shared pain. Lukas (Florian Geißelmann), Andi (Anton Petzold) and Maja (Mathida Smidt) are initially brought together by a shared interest in paint balling; their complex personal lives don’t seem to matter when they’re together. Andi is a recent transplant with a mean temper who’s having trouble fitting in at school, leading to a recent personal violation by his classmates; as the son of their strict form teacher, the shy Lukas feels alienated too. Maja doesn’t attend their school, and seems eminently more mature than the two boys, but together the trio begin to explore their autonomy and selfhood through a series of escalating rituals.
It’s an intriguing script from Lenz and co-writer Alexander Dirninger, one that has shades of Funny Games at play without the nihilism; instead Oasis finds space to be empathetic to its young leads while keeping the audience guessing about Andi’s nature, and if he’s truly one bad day away from making good on his violent threats, or can be healed through his blossoming relationship with Lukas and Andi.
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Although the depiction of Andi’s mental state occasionally veers towards cliché (one scene shows he’s angrily scribbled out all the faces on a worksheet in an almost comical display of teen sociopathy) there’s plenty that feels rich about Lenz’s observant eye. A digicam is utilised by the three teenagers as a method of exploring their bodies, in sharp contrast from the covert school phone footage which continually gets Andi into trouble. At first the boys are resistant to both the camera and Maja’s strange games, reacting with familiar teen bluster, but as they grow more comfortable, the woodland offers a safe space for them in contrast to the stifling social minefield of school.
The see-saw tension that Lenz skilfully deploys creates a foreboding atmosphere, and although the purposefully discordant score feels heavy-handed at times, Oasis is a confident feature debut that puts a fascinating spin on the coming-of-age genre, bolstered by the efforts of its young leads who fit together seamlessly.