November 9, 2009
Briefly, three German films to celebrate the 20th anniversary of 11/9/89.
First, The Tunnel (Der Tunnel), a TV film first broadcast in 2001, about a group of young people trying to leave East Berlin. Some make it across just as the Wall is going up in 1961, others not until the escapees have built a secret tunnel from West to East. One of the highlights is the role of the American media in financing the final effort in exchange for exclusive coverage.
Second, What to Do in Case of Fire? (Was Tun, Wenn's Brennt?), another 2001 film that takes a comedic look at the West Berlin neighborhood of Kreuzberg, which in the late 1980s was a hotbed of anti-Western radicalism and anarchism nestled next to the Wall. (Not far away on the other side was Prenzlaeur Berg, home of many nonconformist East Berliners. If someone makes a film about these two mirror-image neighborhoods, please let me know!)
The film begins with a flashback to a group of Kreuzberg radicals battling the police in the spirit of punk rock and anarchism, a sequence that ends with some of them rigging a bomb to explode in an abandoned villa in Grunewald.
But the bomb fails to detonate, and the film then flashes forward 12 years, when the bomb is accidentally set off by a real estate broker showing the property to a West German plutocrat. Suddenly the hunt is on for the people who planted the bomb -- wherever they are. And that is the story: the attempt by a now very disparate group to come together and throw the police off their track. Because some have accepted the post-'89 world and others have not, the tensions are high and hilariously explored, if not finally well resolved. Indeed, the last line is the group's answer to the question posed in the title: "Let it burn! [Lassen brennan!]." And needless to say, this rang more appealingly in early 2001 than it did a few months later.
Finally, The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen), a 2006 release about an East German Stasi officer who harsasses a playwright less for reasons of state (not that these are justified) than for reasons of spite (sexual jealousy). This is a superb film for many well known reasons, not the least of which is a truly wonderful ending.
October 25, 2009
Yes, loyal reader, Serious Popcorn has been suffering from neglect lately.
This is because I have spent the summer and autumn slogging through the final revisions of my book, now tentatively titled America's Cultural Footprint: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
But speaking of footprints -- and slogging -- allow me to recommend the 2001 German film, As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me, based on the true story of a German POW sentenced to 25 years hard labor in the Siberian gulag. Knowing that the alternative is death, Clemens Forell (a pseudonym) escapes and begins a desperate 8,000 trek across Siberia and Central Asia, eluding the Soviet security forces and barely surviving at times, until he crosses into Iran and is identified by an uncle summoned by the Tehran authorities.
At that point, three years after his escape, Forell returns home and is reunited with his wife and children in a scene that, like many others, is as emotionally powerful as it is swift and direct. There are some Hollywood touches here, notably the added subplot about the camp commander pursuing Forell the way Javert pursues Jean Valjean in Les Miserables. But for the most part, the film is true to the 1955 book by the German writer Josef Bauer.
This modern Odyssey is not well known in the US, perhaps because the central character is, after all, an officer in Hitler's army. All I can say is, the tellers of this tale have clearly thought about that, because the best part of the film is the way it portrays the broad swathe of humanity Forell meets along the way, including a Jewish merchant in Kazakhstan whose family were wiped out by the Nazis. If these people were willing to risk their lives to help a good man, then the least we can do is watch.
Briefly, three German films to celebrate the 20th anniversary of 11/9/89.First, The Tunnel (Der Tunnel), a TV film first broadcast in 2001, about a group of young people trying to leave East Berlin. Some make it across just as the Wall is going up in 1961, others not until the escapees have built a secret tunnel from West to East. One of the highlights is the role of the American media in financing the final effort in exchange for exclusive coverage.
Second, What to Do in Case of Fire? (Was Tun, Wenn's Brennt?), another 2001 film that takes a comedic look at the West Berlin neighborhood of Kreuzberg, which in the late 1980s was a hotbed of anti-Western radicalism and anarchism nestled next to the Wall. (Not far away on the other side was Prenzlaeur Berg, home of many nonconformist East Berliners. If someone makes a film about these two mirror-image neighborhoods, please let me know!)
The film begins with a flashback to a group of Kreuzberg radicals battling the police in the spirit of punk rock and anarchism, a sequence that ends with some of them rigging a bomb to explode in an abandoned villa in Grunewald.
But the bomb fails to detonate, and the film then flashes forward 12 years, when the bomb is accidentally set off by a real estate broker showing the property to a West German plutocrat. Suddenly the hunt is on for the people who planted the bomb -- wherever they are. And that is the story: the attempt by a now very disparate group to come together and throw the police off their track. Because some have accepted the post-'89 world and others have not, the tensions are high and hilariously explored, if not finally well resolved. Indeed, the last line is the group's answer to the question posed in the title: "Let it burn! [Lassen brennan!]." And needless to say, this rang more appealingly in early 2001 than it did a few months later.
Finally, The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen), a 2006 release about an East German Stasi officer who harsasses a playwright less for reasons of state (not that these are justified) than for reasons of spite (sexual jealousy). This is a superb film for many well known reasons, not the least of which is a truly wonderful ending.
Yes, loyal reader, Serious Popcorn has been suffering from neglect lately.This is because I have spent the summer and autumn slogging through the final revisions of my book, now tentatively titled America's Cultural Footprint: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
But speaking of footprints -- and slogging -- allow me to recommend the 2001 German film, As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me, based on the true story of a German POW sentenced to 25 years hard labor in the Siberian gulag. Knowing that the alternative is death, Clemens Forell (a pseudonym) escapes and begins a desperate 8,000 trek across Siberia and Central Asia, eluding the Soviet security forces and barely surviving at times, until he crosses into Iran and is identified by an uncle summoned by the Tehran authorities.
At that point, three years after his escape, Forell returns home and is reunited with his wife and children in a scene that, like many others, is as emotionally powerful as it is swift and direct. There are some Hollywood touches here, notably the added subplot about the camp commander pursuing Forell the way Javert pursues Jean Valjean in Les Miserables. But for the most part, the film is true to the 1955 book by the German writer Josef Bauer.
This modern Odyssey is not well known in the US, perhaps because the central character is, after all, an officer in Hitler's army. All I can say is, the tellers of this tale have clearly thought about that, because the best part of the film is the way it portrays the broad swathe of humanity Forell meets along the way, including a Jewish merchant in Kazakhstan whose family were wiped out by the Nazis. If these people were willing to risk their lives to help a good man, then the least we can do is watch.
About
Serious Popcorn Where are the great films nowadays? Not in the cineplex, typically - or even the video store, more
Martha Bayles For several years I have been a vernacular (meaning not academic) critic of arts, music, media, and cultural policy ... more
Contact me Click here to send me an email... more
Martha Bayles For several years I have been a vernacular (meaning not academic) critic of arts, music, media, and cultural policy ... more
Contact me Click here to send me an email... more
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