A Woman in Berlin (2008)

“Berlin is one big whorehouse.”

A Woman in Berlin (Anonyma-Eine Frau in Berlin) is based on the anonymous diaries of a young German woman. The nameless woman (who’s given the name Anonyma and is played by the incredible German actress Nina Hoss) is a journalist. The book,  published in Germany in the 50s, was not well-received and its author was accused of dishonouring German women. After her death, the book was republished and it became a bestseller. Then came this film version from director Max Farberbock.

The story takes place over a period of about 8 weeks and is set entirely in Berlin. When the film begins, it’s April 26th, 1945, and Berlin is a bombed out shell. The opening scene shows civilians picking their way over debris as they frantically try to find shelter from the bullets and constant explosions. A group of civilians huddle in an underground shelter. They are mainly women and children with a few older men amongst them.

Then as time passes, the explosions cease and an ominous silence begins. The silence is broken with the sounds of heavy equipment passing on the road above. The Red Army has arrived, and it’s just a matter of time before the German civilians are discovered hiding.

At first, the relations between the Soviet Red Army soldiers and the starving German civilians are very tentative. The Soviets encourage the women to step outside of their shelter and get food. By this time, a huge wagon piled full of potatoes sits out on a street, and within a little while, some of the women emerge to seek food. But as victory for the Russians sinks in, the German women are raped repeatedly. Age and illness are no defense. Married women are raped in front of their husbands.

After the first rapes take place, the women reassemble themselves and carry on as best they can. They return to their apartments in a vast building, and try to survive. Anonyma (the anonymous woman and the author of the diaries) emerges as a strong leader almost immediately, and since she speaks Russian, she has the advantage. Seeking out the commanding officer, Major Andreij Rybkin (Yevgeni Sidikhin), she asks him to reign in his men, protect the civilian women, and impose discipline. His reply: “all my men are healthy.”

The rapes continue, and the film creates an effective atmosphere of tension without loading the film with hard-to-watch details. The rapes are mainly depicted as men arriving drunk and chasing the women down until they manage to grab one. A few grunts later, it’s over.

As the weeks continue, Hitler’s suicide is announced, and any illusion that the Germans may have about their Fuehrer coming to their rescue is dashed. Anonyma sinks into the pace of the new life–with frequent rapes at all hours, she devises a plan for survival. Instead of being raped by multiple soldiers, she intends to accept just one and in so doing gain a protector. Just how she manages this is the substance of this riveting film.

In other less capable hands, this film could be a disaster. Too much sentimentality, and we’d have a film too unbearably painful to watch. Instead, A Woman in Berlin is delivered without a modicum of sentimentality, and given the film’s subject matter, the total absence of sentimentality is an incredible feat. Perhaps this is due to the author’s journalistic roots, but it’s the unsentimental treatment of the subject matter that makes the film so watchable and intense.

An early scene in the film establishes that Anonyma was a fascist and a follower of Hitler. She’s seen in better days via flashback in evening dress, whooping it up, toasting Hitler and the war, and she admits in the voiceover that she believed in her country’s “destiny” and that anyone who doubted was a “weakling.” Her complicity in the political madness that led to the deaths of millions taints her as a character, and while she’s not a combatant, she is guilty of endorsing and supporting Hitler’s destructive regime. In this instance, however, her fascist beliefs give her character depth and make her less sympathetic but more interesting. Perhaps this is best seen in the scenes when her fellow Germans whoop it up with the Russians, and while others become obsequious (as they stuff nazi books into incinerators), Anonyma maintains a sort of implacable grimy dignity amidst the squalor. Part of her dignity can be explained by her sheer toughness. She refuses to allow the acts of rape to conquer anything beyond her physical body.

One of the film’s subtlest and best handled themes is the treatment of civilians in wartime. While the film’s main focus is on the German civilians left in Berlin, the Soviet soldiers all have horrible, hair-raising stories to tell about the actions of the invading German army in Russia. In one understated scene Anonyoma translates to her fellow German women who find it difficult to believe that their countrymen were capable of such meaningless violence towards civilians.  Anonyma’s horror as she translates the tale  is apparent through her hesitation to even speak the words, and her supressed emotion is also just barely visible in her slight, but tightly controlled tremors. At the end of the translation, she asks the Soviet soldier if his story is hearsay or if he actually witnessed these incidents. He replied that he saw them, and the camera catches Anonyma’s expression as she silently acknowledges that the soldier’s stories are true.

Given the experiences of these Soviet soldiers, the message seems to be that what happens to the Berliners is mild in comparison. In spite of the fact that the Soviet soldiers are seen on frequent rampages for German women to rape, they are not depicted as monsters–with a couple of exceptions, their behaviour is seen partly as a release from tension and also partly as a result of drinking. One young soldier, for example, refuses to leave the apartment of a German family, even though the woman repeatedly tells him that she has a husband and that he must leave. The soldier’s sustained presence hints at a desire to stay with a family more than anything else. But even though relationships are established between the Berliners and the Soviets, the film never mistakes these relationships as anything other than unhealthy. While the Berliners may host raucous parties for the Soviets, the tension is always apparent just underneath the surface, and we can’t fool ourselves for a moment that the Germans can reign in the Soviets or refuse them anything.

The film falls apart towards the end, but Hoss’s strong portrayal manages to bind the film around her. The Soviets may leave but she will remain and survive, and this is evidenced by her solitary forays into the rubble of Berlin while soldiers stare or leer at her as she continues on her path…alone.

It’s a bit of a coincidence that I watched A Woman in Berlin so soon after watching I Was Nineteen–a film based on the experiences of the director–who as a 19-year-old of German extract was part of the Red Army invading force to enter Berlin. In one scene in I Was Nineteen, the main character Gregor meets a young German girl in Berlin who begs for his protection. He declines and leaves the girl to her fate, and although the film doesn’t explore what happens to the girl, I was reminded of her terror as I watched A Woman in Berlin.

For anyone interested in watching more of Nina Hoss, I recommend Jerichow and A Girl Called Rosemarie. On a final note, A Woman in Berlin concludes with Esenin’s Suicide Poem set to music:

“Goodbye my friend, goodbye.

My dear one, you are in my heart.  

Our predestined parting promises a future meeting.  

Goodbye, my friend, without hand or word, No grief and no sad face,–

In  this life there’s nothing new in dying,

But in living, of course, is nothing new either.”  

Jerichow (2008)

“You can’t love if you don’t have money.”

There are some situations you would never chose to become involved with, but desperation leads you there.

The German film Jerichow begins with Thomas (Benno Furmann) attending his mother’s funeral. He has a past, an unknown history, but now he is back at the humble little house owned by his recently deceased mother. He’s just left her funeral when he’s visited by two men from his past. Exactly what happened and what Thomas’s relationship is to these men isn’t clear, but it is obvious that there’s some sort of criminal activity involved, and that Thomas has stolen some money.

The visit leaves Thomas without the little purloined nest egg he’d intended to use to repair his mother’s dilapidated house. With no job, and no money, this dishonorably discharged soldier turns to the state for help getting a job. The next thing you know, Thomas is part of a cucumber harvesting crew, performing extremely difficult work–no doubt for a pittance.

Thomas’s luck seems to be improving when he meets Ali (Hilmi Sozer), the chubby, middle aged Turk who owns a chain of snack bars sprinkled throughout the region. But that’s not the only thing Ali owns–he also has a gorgeous country home, and a blonde German wife, Laura (Nina Hoss). After Thomas does Ali a favour, Ali offers Thomas a job as his driver, and Thomas accepts.

With the three main characters in place, the film then creates an effective love triangle. Laura is obviously sick and tired of her husband, and Ali is busy spying on Laura and testing her loyalties. Surely no one in their right minds would see Laura as anything other than ‘off limits,’ but Thomas doesn’t seem to care, and soon, Laura and Thomas are groping each other every chance they get.

It’s impossible to watch Jerichow (Jerichow is the name of Thomas’s home town, by the way) without being aware that the plot is a reworking of James Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, made into a film first in 1946 and remade in 1981.

One of the biggest differences between the 1946 American film version and this German retelling of the tale is that the character of Ali is far more interesting–even if he is more unpleasant. As Thomas drives Ali from snack bar to snack bar, Ali anticipates the actions of some of his managers. He expects to be cheated, and he’s not disappointed when people do exactly what he expects. Similarly, he expects Laura to sneak around and cheat on him too, and of course this makes the way he dangles Laura in front of Thomas rather intriguing.

Thomas and Laura don’t struggle with the morality of the situation. To them, it’s a black and white situation which is determined by cold cash. Jerichow also tackles the immigrant perspective, and here even though Ali is a wealthy man, he can’t wait to retire back in Turkey–a place he still considers home even though he only returns periodically. There’s a sense that this is the new Germany–with hunky Thomas disenfranchised after a bout with the army and Laura, bought and paid for by the only man interested enough to afford her price tag.

All three of the main characters are well cast: Benno Furman with his economy of movement and speech, Nina Hoss as the burned out wife who chokes on her subservient role, and Ali, a man who’s far deeper than he appears to be. From director Christian Petzold.

I Was Nineteen (1968)

“Perhaps you underestimate the Nazi movement’s irresistibility. It was a continuation of German history. You quoted Kant, but you misunderstood him. The categorical imperative to obey any order an authority gives us was a trait of this people before Hitler. The need to fulfill our duties. This was just an escalation. An artificially induced frenzy of obedience. The result of long-suffered degradation. An explosion of sadism. A phenomenon. We have been destroyed like no other race.”

I came across the title I Was Nineteen (Ich War Neunzehn) on a list of the ‘100 best German films ever.’ Some of the films are sadly no longer available, but I noticed that both A Girl Called Rosemarie and The Kaiser’s Lackey made the list, and since those were both great films, it seemed possible that  I Was Nineteen would be something special too.

It was….

I Was Nineteen is based on the memoirs of East German film director Konrad Wolf. Wolf was a lieutenant in the Red Army during WWII, and for a short period, he was the commander of Bernau in the spring of 1945.

The protagonist of I was Nineteen is 19-year-old Gregor Hecker (Jaecki Schwarz) who arrives on the outskirts of Berlin as a member of the Red Army advance scouting team. Part of Gregor’s job is to man the megaphone and tell the German soldiers that the war is over, they’ve lost, and they should surrender. Gregor is a uniquely valuable member of the team as he’s a product of a German parents who moved to the U.S.S.R and he can speak fluent German.

Based on Wolf’s diaries, the film is largely episodic and lacks a smooth narrative. Gregor is seen as a reflective mirror of the drama, and some of his recorded experiences remain more powerful than others. Some of the Germans, once they realise that Gregor is a ‘fellow’ German, imagine that this means he will be kinder and that they will receive different treatment at his hands. But Gregor doesn’t identify with Germany, its people or its lost cause in the least. He’s appalled by the actions of the Third Reich, and in one of the segments, he’s in the home of a German who intellectualizes the mass slaughter. Gregor isn’t even interested, and if anything, his slightly impatient expression seems to question why they even allow the man to spout his theories. Another of the very first segments depicts a young German girl in Bernau, obviously traumatized by recent incidents. The town is practically deserted, and the girl has drifted to Bernau from elsewhere. Terrified by the presence of the Red Army, she begs Gregor for protection in the hostile presence of a female Red Army soldier. There’s no sentimentality–even though for one moment, the film seems about to lean in that direction.

In another episode, Gregor arrives at a deserted concentration camp. He and his fellow Red Army soldiers anticipate liberating prisoners, but they have arrived too late. Archival footage of the gas chambers and the procedures used are grafted onto the film for a grim authenticity.

At another point in the film, Gregor is a translator for the Red Army officer who tries to persuade the German officers at Spandau to surrender. This is perhaps the most tense and arguably the most interesting segment of the film. The collapse of the Third Reich is evident at this point–it’s just that some people are admitting it and others are still delusional while the division between the Wehrmacht and the Nazi officers widens.

One of the most interesting aspects of the film’s unusual persepective is Gregor’s reaction to the German officers. While some of the Germans seem perplexed by Gregor’s role, Gregor views the officers as “blue-blooded bastards” who led the country into the path of madness. In spite of the fact that the war is ‘over,’ the film shows that this was an extraordinarily sensitive and dangerous time with some Germans refusing to accept defeat and surrender, while the ‘common’ foot soldier just wanted to go home. The film’s scenes show the destruction of the German army from within as some Germans refuse to surrender and try to kill those who hand over their weapons. 

I Was Nineteen is absolutely fascinating–in spite of its lack of momentum and with tension ebbing and flowing.  A May Day celebration, for example, interrupts the dangerous penetration of Germany, and makes the audience relax–much too early as it turns out. The fate of the German soldiers rounded up by Gregor and his fellow Red Army soldiers is not apparent, but their destination is the U.S.S.R, and many would never return….

Cherry Blossoms (2008)

“Maybe there was another woman inside her that no one saw.”

Grief and the impermanence of life is the theme in the thoughtful film Cherry Blossoms (aka Kirschbluten-Hanami) from German director, Doris Dorrie. The story begins with middle-aged Trudi Angermeier (Hannelore Elsner) receiving bad news from two doctors regarding her husband’s, Rudi’s (ElmarWepper) test results. While the doctors ask Trudi how her husband will deal with the news of his impending death, Rudi seems oblivious to his terminal, never named disease. We never see Trudi and Rudi discuss his illness or his test results, and the implication is that Rudi is either willfully ignoring the subject or is largely oblivious while Trudi struggles to adjust to the idea of a life alone without her husband.

At first the film places Trudi at the centre of this drama. The Angermeiers lead a life of quiet regularity in a beautiful, small Bavarian town. Their lives run like clockwork with Rudi going to and returning from work each day at a waste management plant, armed with a sandwich and an apple for lunch. “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” is Rudi’s mantra, a mantra that becomes sadly ironic as the film continues. They have three children who’ve all moved away–a son and daughter live in Berlin and a son, Karl (Maximilian Bruckner) lives in Tokyo.

Armed with the knowledge that Rudi will die soon, Trudi shows signs of longing to do all the things she and her husband never did. She would love to go to Japan, see Mt Fuji, and Karl, but stick-in-the-mud Rudi says that one mountain is just like any other, and with retirement just one year away, he argues that there will be plenty of time for travel later. He does agree to visit Berlin and then they detour to the beach.

Cherry Blossoms is a sublime film that explores the painful divide between the Angermeiers and their adult children. While Trudi designs the trip to Berlin as a sort of poignant farewell journey, Rudi acts as though nothing is wrong, and the children, an adult son with his own family, and a lesbian daughter and her lover, Franzi (Nadja Uhl) aren’t exactly thrilled to see their parents. The children (and the grandchildren) make it clear that hosting Trudi and Rudi is a terrible burden and an inconvenience. Franzi, as a non family member, manages to connect with Trudi and even takes her to see a Japanese Butoh performance. Franzi is the only person who doesn’t see Trudi as a nuisance, and genuinely interested in her lover’s mother, she guides the Angermeiers on a tour of Berlin.

The films of Doris Dorrie always contain unexpected twists, and Cherry Blossoms is no exception. Rudi finally undergoes a trip to Japan as some sort of repentance and attempt to understand his wife, and his visit with Karl is strained and awkward. The two men–father and son–are more alike than they’d care to admit. While Rudi’s struggles to negotiate the mysteries of Toyko are reminiscent of Lost in Translation, ultimately fate leads Rudi to connect with a Butoh dancer (Tadashi Endo)–a young woman who understands the nature of grief and the need to keep loved ones close–even when they are no longer with us.

The film’s synopsis would not normally appeal to me, but since I am a Doris Dorrie fan, I knew the film would rise above the mundane and trite, and that this fascinating director would offer, yet again, a unique, ultimately optimistic glimpse at the world. I was not disappointed. Visually, this is a gorgeous film, with shots of falling cherry blossoms, amazing shots of Tokyo, and breathtakingly beautiful sunsets above deep blue waves that crash to the shore with a coppery glow. The film does not wallow in death, disease or guilt, but instead rises above all negativity. Exploring the painful divide between the Angermeiers and their adult children, Doris Dorrie creates a story that bypasses trite cliches as Rudi undertakes the final solitary journey. Just as the cherry blossoms explode with colour and vigour, they must also fade and die, and it’s this cycle of life that Dorrie accepts and films–along with its complications and rituals.

Doris Dorrie has also written a number of novels and short stories that are available in translation, and while it’s sometimes difficult to get copies of her films, you can find her books for sale on sites such as Alibris.

A Virus Has No Morals (1986)

“Mother, what are you doing here? You were always a bit eccentric, but I didn’t realise that you were so perverse.”

A son meets his mother in a public toilet. Nurses on the graveyard shift throw the dice to see which AIDS patient will die next. A virologist uses dildos to demonstrate the effects of AIDS. This all happens in A Virus Has No Morals (AKA Ein Virus Kennt Keine Moral), Rosa von Praunheim’s satire about AIDS. A satire about AIDS!!!! Yes, you read that correctly. There are probably only a handful of directors who could pull this off successfully (John Waters leaps to mind). Rosa von Praunheim is a renegade German director who’s made a number of documentaries about AIDS, and his gay activism brought him death threats in his native Germany. Only someone with von Praunheim’s reputation as a fierce, unrelenting defender of gay rights could make this film and get away with it.

As its title suggests, A Virus Has No Morals argues that AIDS does not discriminate when it comes to infection (i.e. it’s not sent by some deity as a punishment). But when the film begins, we see several moral authorities who have various twisted beliefs about AIDS. The film’s moral authorities include: virologist, Dr. Blood, a therapist (Regina Rudnick) who believes that AIDS is psychosomatic, and a reporter (Eva Kurz) for the sleazy tabloid Purple Pages. Of course, their smug attitudes grant them a certain comfort. After all, if they are fine, upstanding, moral people, then they can’t have anything to worry about….

On the other side of the fence, in the face of infection, there are many who still think they are invulnerable–including a sauna owner (played by von Praunheim). He sees AIDS as detrimental to business, and he tries to dream up social events to encourage business.

By showing the entire spectrum of those involved one way or another with AIDS, von Praunheim illustrates the social dynamic of the disease. There are those who make money off of AIDS by sensationalizing it (the Purple Pagesreporter), and those who promise ‘cures’ (the therapist). Outraged by the “fascist medical regime,” a caring nurse forms a revolutionary group called AIDS (Angry, Sick, and Impotent Direct Action). Meanwhile as paranoia runs unchecked in the country, the Minister of Health draws up plans to start shipping AIDS patients to “ideal isolation” on an island for Quarantine. here AIDS patients will exist in a “post modern viral infection park,” with its own condom factory.

A Virus Has No Morals isn’t von Praunheim’s best film (my favourites are Neurosia and Anita: Dances of Vice), but it is typical von Praunheim fare–very colourful outrageous, and complete with a savage, riotous wit. Somehow, when I watch his films, I have the sensation that the situation is barely under control, but at the same time, it’s obvious that von Praunheim is having a great time making his films. Take for example, the sequences of von Praunheim’s version of Masque of the Red Death, scenes that are interjected into the middle of the film. It’s all von Praunheim madness and marvellous mayhem, and if you are a von Praunheim fan, you won’t mind a bit.

The Kaiser’s Lackey (1951)

 “If your political dilettantism continues, there will be an explosion.”

Director Wolfgang Staudte’s marvelously understated satire, The Kaiser’s Lackey, a 1951 film, was recently released on DVD. Set mainly in the 1890s, the film is based on Heinrich Mann’s novel Der Untertan. Originally banned in Germany, The Kaiser’s Lackey is now considered one of the 100 greatest German films ever made.

The film’s protagonist Diederich Hebbling is hardly a hero; as a boy Diederich is terrified of everything. From his father’s impassioned, tyrannical rants to his mother’s ghastly tales of what happens to children, little Diederich learns to never take chances, and dog-like he follows the rules. The very first glimmer of Diederich’s character appears in an early classroom scene when he curries a teacher’s favour by tattling on a fellow student.

By the time Diederich (Werner Peters) is an adult and attends university, his character is set. Attracted to Agnes Gopel (Sabine Thalbach), he scurries away when threatened by a rival, and turning from the challenges of love, instead he becomes enthralled with the Neo-Teutons–a group that gives a sense of identity and kinship and that ultimately shapes his notions of German superiority and imperialism. Dabbling with contrived duels to gain obligatory, status scars, he “experienced a sort of suicidal élan,” and gradually Diederich’s inclusion in the Neo-Teutons becomes a substitution for personality. He evades military service by pulling strings, and lacking imagination, spontaneity, and individualism, Diederich becomes the perfect material for a politician. Eventually, with the confidence and comfort gained from extensive drinking rituals and the superficial camaraderie of the Neo-Teutons, he despoils Agnes and then casts her aside due to his notions of ‘unblemished’ womanhood.

When Diederich inherits his father’s paper factory, he returns home to Netzig and becomes a petty tyrant. Rabidly anti-Semitic, he prides himself on his patriotism and harsh treatment of his workers. In unsettled political times, Diederich learns to curry favour from the socially superior bombastic governor, but he also gains cooperation from the oppositional Social Democrats by bribing one of their leaders. Some of the scenes involving the governor and his dog are hilarious. Diederich, who’s beneath the governor’s dog on the totem pole of power, must suffer various indignities without complaint in order to gain access to the governor’s presence, patronage, and privileged inner circle. And like the good little underling he is, Diederich knows better than to complain when the dog treats him like some sort of squeaky toy.

Eventually elected to the town council after gaining notoriety through a preposterous trial, Diederich’s pomposity and vanity have no limits. Courtship to a local heiress whose inheritance and bovine nature suit Diederich’s ambitions results in marriage and a honeymoon. Once Diederich learns that the Kaiser is expected in Rome, he diverts his honeymoon plans, and abandoning his wife temporarily in the street he succeeds in gaining a glimpse of his idol. Running alongside the Kaiser’s carriage like a faithful dog, Diederich is the last person to realize how insufferable and ridiculous he is.

The film, however, makes it perfectly clear that even though Diederich is a buffoon, and a cretinous underling, as an autocrat shaped by the “corps, the army and the Imperialistic spirit” he’s a destructive force, and this is established in the film’s final prophetic scene. Diederich gives a thundering patriotic speech given at the unveiling of the town’s statute of the Kaiser, and with a captive audience, he becomes carried away–even ignoring the governor’s order to stop. As Diederich’s speech becomes more impassioned, the weather turns sour and his speech’s militaristic, nationalistic tone parallels the gathering storm. Admonishing the crowd that the nation’s greatness is “forged on the battlefield,” Diederich finishes his speech ignoring the collateral damage occurring around him. This brilliant symbolism presages Germany’s coming destruction and a barking, insane and obsessed fuehrer whose notions of racial purity, militaristic traditions, and German imperialism plunged the world into war.

Eight Miles High (2007)

 “This is fucked up. I only meant a metaphorical bomb.”

The interesting but ultimately unsatisfying and superficial biopic Eight Miles High (Das Wilden Life) from director Achim Bornhak covers just a portion of the life of German supermodel Uschi Obermaier–from the mid 60s until 1983. Culturally, these were probably the colorful years, but when the final credits rolled, I couldn’t help but wonder what parts of the story were missing….

The film begins when Uschi (Natalia Avelon) leaves home and her big-bosomed Bavarian mother behind and sets out for Berlin, landing in Berlin’s first commune–aptly named Kommune 1. In the ‘free love’ atmosphere, she begins sleeping with Rainer Langhans (Matthias Schweighofer), and the free love notion works well for Rainer until Uschi becomes a groupie and starts sleeping with Mick Jagger (Victor Noren) and Keith Richards (Alexander Scheer). Uschi’s relationship with two members of the Stones begins with a trip to England where she attends a party that could, uncannily belong to the Beggars Banquet album. The camera rightly concentrates on the impressions of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards–studiously avoiding close-ups and facial expressions.

The film depicts Uschi as the major reason for Kommune 1’s disintegration, and since she took ‘free love’ to a level, that apparently her lover Rainer could not tolerate, this might be accurate, and if it’s not true it’s certainly amusing. The residents of Kommune 1 are depicted as a bunch of brawling, immature, egomaniacal twits with Uschi as the only one who has her shit together.

The claim that Uschi was a “radical model” is shown is her ability to grab the cinematic opportunity–especially when she managed to get her photo on the cover of a magazine depicting her in between the police and protesters. Uschi continued to grab headlines worldwide and this continued after her explosive relationship with Hamburg nightclub owner Dieter Bockhorn (David Scheller)–a free spirit of an entirely different sort. Together he and Uschi traveled the world in pursuit of new adventures. These adventures are largely interpreted as Uschi going around naked (or marginally clothed), picking up animals, and daringly toting drugs across borders under the noses of the buffoons in charge.

Ultimately with lines like “what I needed was a man. The wilder the better” we are left with little understanding of what made Uschi tick. True she’s depicted as a woman who refused to allow any man to own her but this comes across in just a couple of scenes in mostly superficial ways. While the film was entertaining enough, this is a largely superficial treatment of Uschi’s life. I’d like to think that there was a lot more going on than just naked romps across the world. In German with subtitles.

The Edge of Heaven (2007)

 “I’m a lady of easy virtue.”

Lives intersect and create permanent changes in the wonderful film The Edge of Heaven (Auf Der Anderen Seite) from writer/director Fatih Akin. Akin was born in Germany but is of Turkish descent, so his films provide a unique cross-cultural view of the lives of Turks living in Germany.

The film begins in Germany with elderly Turkish widower immigrant Ali (Tuncel Kurtiz) visiting the red light district of Bremen and selecting prostitute Yeter (Nursel Kose). With her vinyl mini-dress and blonde wig, Yeter doesn’t seem the cozy type, but Ali is drawn to her. After a few encounters he suggests that she move in with him, and she accepts. She has few other choices at this point–she can’t stay in the red light area as she’s been identified and threatened by fellow Turks, so she moves in with Ali.

Add Ali’s son Nejat (Baki Dvarat) to the picture–he’s a university professor of German, and no doubt while he’s a success by cultural and societal markers, there’s something wrong…we see a scene of Nejat sitting in his messy office. Is he bored out of his mind or just contemplative? Another scene shows him listlessly lecturing students, so without explicit narrative or plot development, it seems clear that Nejat has ’succeeded’ in German society, but he’s not thrilled about it.

Nejat doesn’t object to his father’s new housemate–in fact Yeter and Nejat have an excellent relationship. And this is in contrast to Ali’s relationship with Yeter. While he couldn’t wait for her to move in and promised to pay her, things quickly turn sour.

Circumstances take Nejat to Turkey and he begins a search for Yeter’s missing daughter, Ayten (Nurgul Yesilcay). The film takes us through Ayten’s story and activities in a revolutionary group. Seeking asylum in Germany, Ayten becomes involved with a German girl, Lotte (Patrycia Ziolkowska) and Lotte’s mother Susanne (Hanna Schygulla).

The Edge of Heaven is a wonderful film, and if I’ve managed to make it sound confusing, it really isn’t. The story threads are very well woven, and although the characters are connected, the viewer retains the knowledge of those connections–we have knowledge of those relationships that eludes the characters.

Watching The Edge of Heaven, I was reminded of Ozpetek’s wonderful film Haman (Steam: The Turkish Bath)–a film that also shows the exoticism and the dangers of Istanbul. Just as the main character in Steam, Francesco, is beguiled by Istanbul, Nejat is similarly entranced. There’s one scene where he walks into–of all things–a German book shop. There it is, apparently waiting for him. He steps inside and with a sense of quiet wonder he scans the shelves and silently logs the titles….

There’s a lot happening in this film–cultural identity, loss, redemption and the relationships between parents and their children who learn to accept loss and forgive errors and crimes. This is the best Akin film I’ve seen to date (In July, Head-On, and The Edge of Heaven).

The Gleiwitz Case (1961)

 “The job we are doing is part of a master plan.”

The documentary style black and white film The Gleiwitz Case recreates a long buried incident that sparked WWII. In 1939, a staged attack was conducted against a radio station in Gleitwitz–a few miles away from Germany’s border with Poland. The Gleiwitz incident was part of Operation Himmler–an orchestrated Gestapo plan to demonstrate “Polish aggression” against Nazi Germany, and it was supposed to provide the perfect excuse Germany needed to invade Poland.

Alfred Naujocks (Hannjo Hasse) organized the incident operating under the direct orders of Heinrich Muller and Reinhard Heydrich. The plan was to attack the station using Polish-speaking German officers. These officers–dressed in Polish uniforms–grabbed the airwaves and made hostile statements against Nazi Germany using Polish and broken German. Then as further ‘evidence’ left behind, the Germans took a Pole from a concentration camp, dressed him in a Polish uniform and shot him in the front of the radio station.

The film is basically a recreation of events–there’s no examination of the psychology of the characters, but this is an excellent portrayal of the cold efficiency of the Third Reich in operation. The film’s realism and pacing is reminiscent of The Battle of Algiers–with an emphasis on close-ups and a breathtaking immediacy. The film is a chilling reminder of exactly how calculating the Gestapo were when it came to propaganda, and it’s a demonstration of a government using a range of propaganda devices to ’sell’ a war to the people–enraging a nation and whipping it into a war frenzy. In this instance, Hitler publicly preached reason and patience and in reality created a moral imperative and a fictional urgency to justify war. The Gleiwitz incident took place on August 31, 1939, and the next day, Germany invaded Poland. The film ends with the chilling caption: “43 million dead.” DVD extras include: the trailer, a photo gallery, an essay “The Case of the Gleiwitz Case”, biographies and filmographies. Directed by Gerhard Klein, the film is in German with English subtitles.

Kameraschaft (1931)

“This damned drudgery will kill us all.”

Kameradschaft or Comradeship (AKA La Tragedie de la Mine) from G.W Pabst is an amazing, gripping and stirring film that follows the efforts to rescue French miners trapped 2000 feet underground. With its theme that comradeship transcends borders and nationalities, Pabst set the film in post WWI, but it’s loosely based on the real life mining disaster at Courrieres in 1906.

The mine straddles the Franco-German border, and the French miners work their side, and the Germans work the German side. When the film begins, German miners try to find work over on the French side but they are turned away. In these the post WWI years, strong sentiment still exists between both sides–particularly since some of these men fought on opposite sides just a few years previously. These hostilities and resentments surface at a local tavern one evening. The two communities don’t mix well, and they tend to stick with their own countrymen.

The early parts of the film establish various characters and story threads, and then these characters become identifiable in the chaos of the mining disaster. There’s a romance brewing between Francoise (Andree Duchret) and miner Emile (Georges Charlia), the best friend of her brother, Jean (Daniel Mendaille). Francoise hates the mining life, and after leaving the community, she now lives and works in Paris. She tries to get her widowed mother to move to Paris too, but the mother replies: “many have gone to Paris. They earn more money but not enough to pay the rent.”

Another story thread involves George (Pierre-Louis), the young grandson of a former miner. The grandfather sends the lad underground with mixed emotions–on the one hand there’s a grim acceptance: “each gets his turn.” But on the other hand, the grandfather has misgivings and asks Emile and Jean to keep an eye on George.

When an explosion rips through the French side of the mine and huge columns of smoke bilge forth from the mineshaft, the entire community rushes to the pit for news. The wives, mothers and children of the trapped miners are locked out of the area, and the gates are policed to ensure they don’t get past. The palatable anguish of the families pours from the frustrated, desperate crowd, and they must wait beyond the gates while the owner of the mine is let through. These scenes reiterate not only the hierarchy of the owners, the management, and the workers but also underscore the adversarial relationship between these groups of people. There’s one moment when the police contemplate calling in the troops on the crowd of distraught mining families.

When news of the mining disaster reaches the German miners, they rally together to assist in the rescue efforts. A great deal of the film follows the rescue attempts as the German rescue crew search for signs of survivors. In one brilliant sequence, trapped French miners tap to alert the rescuers of their whereabouts, and the film flashes back to scenes in WWI trenches; the frantic tapping of the trapped French miners morphs into rapid machine gun fire, and a German miner experiences the horror of the trenches once again.

There’s a lesson here in comradeship, of course. Some of the Germans reject the idea of risking their lives to save the French miners with a savage irony–after all just a few years have passed since a bloody shooting party raged between both countries, but as one German miner points out, “why should we mind the generals. A miner’s a miner.” In another scene, German miners sit down and eat while on a break, and they cannot carry on knowing that men are dying. Nationality and old resentments are cast aside as the miners embrace the notion of comradeship.

The owners and the management are all more interested in keeping the mine a viable operation and saving men is not the priority. The miners are quite aware of this, and the knowledge that they are expendable helps spur them in the search for their comrades. The final scenes include speeches by both French and German miners:

“Regardless of whether we’re French or German, we’re all workers, and a miner is a miner. But why do we only stick together when it gets tough? Should we sit idly by until they’ve stirred us up so we shoot each other down in a war?

The coal belongs to everyone whether we dig it up on this side or the other, and if they can’t reach an agreement at the top, we’ll stick together because we belong together.”

Unfortunately, there is no happy ending for the horses trapped in the mines, and while the film acknowledges their usefulness and the human reliance on horses, at no point is rescuing the horses even considered–neither is their abandonment in the mines mentioned. In French and German with subtitles.