Master of Disaster

F Watchlist

In Germany, small and large catastrophes are played out almost weekly. The scope ranges from the local fire brigade exercise to train accidents and to apocalypses with several thousand participants. The film reviews the simulation games and accompanies some of the "masters of disaster" during the concatenation of the most unfortunate circumstances on paper and during the reality check in fictional emergency entres. – Strictly stylized long shots bring out the artificial, sometimes even comical aspects of the emergency exercises, and their accumulation leads to the unspoken statement that the speed and complexity of our much-quoted "risk society" are so high that the enormous effort required for the deaster simulations serves less for security than for the illusion of controllability. (afu)