As everyone else here has explained, this film (People on Sunday)was done by a group of young Germans who later went on to stellar careers in film, not in Germany. I saw it screened at the Castro theatre in San Francisco where it was accompanied by a new musical score on the superb Wurlitzer house organ. A real treat. Also, this is possibly only the second or third time this film has been shown publicly in the U.S. The original film did not survive WWII intact, and the musical score was lost completely. What we have has been assembled from the remaining fragments found in Germany and various countries around Europe. An excellent reconstruction never the less.
But what fascinated me about this film is what you don't see. This is Germany in 1930. They've just come out of a devastating economic post-war period, and they're newly into the world-wide depression. Hitler is lurking in the wings, waiting for his big chance. Yet we see hordes of happy people in Berlin living simple pleasant lives. It's eerie. This is more of a tone poem than a filmic documentary, as they imply when they point out that that the cast is not professional actors. So in that sense it's strange.
But we get to see lots of daily street life in between-the-wars Germany, which is fascinating. We see the primitive technology. I did not see one airplane in the whole film. And as we watch, we wonder; did these young people march gleefully off to war, or did they flee to the west? Were they suckered in by Hitler, or did they just go along without thinking about anything? We see very little of the grinding poverty and desperation which Hitler was able to exploit, so I'm a bit skeptical about the supposed realism of the film. We don't see the ground that made a totalitarian dictatorship possible. The whole social environment we see on the screen is so benign and content, that I'm wondering what these young filmmakers were really thinking. Were they out of touch, indulging in wishful thinking, or just young and inept? These young film makers were rebelling against the Hollywoodish German film industry, which makes their artful but shallow film all the more perplexing.
So if you want one version of a stark historical period, with no great message, this film is worthy. But I think the real value here is what is not said and what is not shown.
But what fascinated me about this film is what you don't see. This is Germany in 1930. They've just come out of a devastating economic post-war period, and they're newly into the world-wide depression. Hitler is lurking in the wings, waiting for his big chance. Yet we see hordes of happy people in Berlin living simple pleasant lives. It's eerie. This is more of a tone poem than a filmic documentary, as they imply when they point out that that the cast is not professional actors. So in that sense it's strange.
But we get to see lots of daily street life in between-the-wars Germany, which is fascinating. We see the primitive technology. I did not see one airplane in the whole film. And as we watch, we wonder; did these young people march gleefully off to war, or did they flee to the west? Were they suckered in by Hitler, or did they just go along without thinking about anything? We see very little of the grinding poverty and desperation which Hitler was able to exploit, so I'm a bit skeptical about the supposed realism of the film. We don't see the ground that made a totalitarian dictatorship possible. The whole social environment we see on the screen is so benign and content, that I'm wondering what these young filmmakers were really thinking. Were they out of touch, indulging in wishful thinking, or just young and inept? These young film makers were rebelling against the Hollywoodish German film industry, which makes their artful but shallow film all the more perplexing.
So if you want one version of a stark historical period, with no great message, this film is worthy. But I think the real value here is what is not said and what is not shown.