| Forklift Driver Klaus – The First Day on the Job | |
| Director: |
|
| Producer: | Michael Sombetzki |
| Narrator: | Egon Hoegen |
| Starring: | Konstantin Graudus |
| Music: | Laurent Lombard |
| Cinematography: | Matthias Lehmann |
| Editing: | Andrea Stabenow |
| Runtime: | 9 min |
| Country: | Germany |
| Language: | German |
| Budget: | €90,000 |
Forklift Driver Klaus – The First Day on the Job (German: Staplerfahrer Klaus – Der erste Arbeitstag) is a German short film from 2000 about the first day of Klaus' work as a forklift driver. The film is a parody of work safety films from the 1980s.
The film was written and directed by Stefan Prehn and Jörg Wagner and stars Konstantin Graudus as the title role of Klaus. The narration was provided by Egon Hoegen, who was known in Germany for narrating road safety films.[1]
The film quickly became famous, thanks in part to its splatter film violence, which fans regard as comical due to its extreme and obviously fake nature. The 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 forklift truck drivers and shows the first day of work for newly qualified forklift truck driver Klaus. The film highlights, in a gory manner, the dangers of unsafe operation of machinery, as well as inattention as a result of chitchatting and distraction by a female coworker passing by.
Shortly after Klaus' first operation of the forklift, he nearly hits a co-worker who was leaving warehouse through garage door where walking is forbidden, instead of the pedestrian exit door. While this causes no injury, it is a hint for what would be coming. As the film progresses the injuries/deaths become more brutal, beginning with things like a man falling from the forklift after he was lifted on bare wooden platform rather than in a safety cage, and closing with the most violent: ending in a stray chainsaw being driven around by a severed arm on the floor, reaching and ripping through a man who had already been cut in half waist-down due to Klaus' previous accident. A gory POV shot of the chainsaw chopping through the man is shown. The warehouse's alarm bell ends up falling from its mount due to corrosion from blood stains, and lands on a head as apparent from a screaming sound. The film ends as Klaus is decapitated by the chainsaw and two men are left impaled onto the forklift prongs, screaming. The forklift drives off into the sunset as the impaled men continue to scream with the chainsaw racing after them.The closing musical theme, "Happyland", was written by French composer Laurent Lombard.
Although the film is not officially part of the German training and education system for forklift trucks, it has been shown by some instructors as an example of what forklift drivers should not do.[2]
The film has won many awards, including: