Helikopter – Hausarrest

Twenty-seven-year old Benjamin could have served his ten-month sentence for “public disturbance” in jail; but instead, he is under house arrest wearing an electronic bracelet in his mother’s flat. With no commentary or interviews, Helikopter has us wonder whether this legal bargain was a real godsend… In a single confined setting (for good reason), the rigid framing combines with the editing to highlight the small repetitive gestures of everyday life and give a new meaning to the term “family unit”. on the one hand, a strapping lad sporting tattoos who spends the whole day mixing industrial music on his turntable and, on the other, a linen-folding mother. This physical closeness, which seems more imposed than comforting, exudes a strange impression of exteriority. Like a glove turned inside out, the outside is in the domestic space and the remotely steered miniature helicopter brings the outside into the bedroom of the overgrown teenager. The comic side of the failed mother-son communication (the mother is responsible for a helicopter crash…) is soon filled with a less amusing worry: and what if this relationship, beyond its specific context, reflected the model of a more widespread parent-child bond? (Charlotte Garson)