Klaus Forklift Driver Critique

Klaus Forklift Driver



This particular short film depicts a fictional educational film about fork lift truck operational safety. The dangers of unsafe operations are presented in gory and gruesome details.

This particular film is a German short film from 2000 about the first day of Klaus' work as a fork lift driver. The film is a parody of work safety films from the 1980's. The short film was written and directed by Stefan Prehn and Jorg Wagner. This quickly became famous, much thanks to its splatter film violence, which fans regard as comical due to its extreme and obviously fake nature. This film received several awards and was made available on DVD by Anolis Entertainment in 2003, dubbed in English, French and Spanish.

The film is presented as a safety instruction video for fork lift truck drivers and shows the first day of work for newly-qualified fork lift truck driver Klaus. The film highlights in a gory manner the dangers of unsafe operation of machinery. As the film progresses the injuries/deaths become more brutal, beginning with things like a man falling from the fork lift after he was lifted improperly, and ending with the most violent; a stray chainsaw that had been on when the arm using it was cut off drives itself around before reaching a man who has already been cut in half.



This is a great German short film depicting a mock example of an authentic safety video that one might have to endure during an employment training session. This ten minute comical educational film was designed to mirror many of those boring regulation shorts that are passed down from the human resources department. Directors Stefan Prehn and Jord Wagner in turn created a fictional piece based on a new employee named Klaus who just obtained his fork lift driving certification. Klaus is introduced in each segment as he makes fatal mistakes in the work place that provide serious consequences. What is great about this short film is that it truly is a gory fitting piece that is laced with dark humor and you tend to get the same amount of gore in ten minutes that you might receive during a feature length.

We are informed that there are approximately 37,000 trained workers in Germany. Klaus who is featured on the first day of his new job has earned the requirements to drive a fork lift. As a narrator details each scene (which is often accompanied by slides and "do not do this" footage), Klaus quickly brings chaos to his work place with fatal mistakes that progressively grow worse.



You can pretty much guess that most of this short film is actually taken from real-world advise given to new workers. The thing here is that the scenes are illustrated in an uncensored way demonstrating several dismembering moments that are a result of the mishaps. One worker loses his hands, another his head, with another unlucky victim getting sliced clean through and dismembered at the waist. Blood flies, employees get wasted, and Klaus ends up having a really bad day. It is in my opinion great fun to watch this short film in which is created with a sense of gore and a dark and sinister style humor that takes things to the extreme every chance it gets.

Klaus - Forklift Driver