gudrunh-794-69037 Reviews

Im Trommelfeuer der Westfront (1936)

An important historical document

[9/10 · 31 May 2016]

Recently restored and re-released with English subtitles, this 1936 film by Charles Willy Kayser is a curious blend of documentary and dramatic recreation.

Opening and closing with a strident, lyrical call to honour the sacrifice of those who served in the trenches of the Western Front, actual footage – German and Allied – is used to graphically depict the most appalling conditions imaginable. Men knee-deep in mud, shovelling in a pitifully vain attempt to clear it, sums up the futility of their plight in particular, and of war in general.

Squalor, terror and duty the common denominators for friend and foe alike.

In this regard, it is a paean to all forces rather than just one, and it is this aspect – as well as its regular use of actual battlefront film - which sets it somewhat apart from other powerful, contemporary depictions such as Pabst's "Westfront" (1930) and Zöberlein's "Stosstrupp 1917" (1934).

Mud and monotony. Stoicism and sacrifice. Comradeship and card games.

And then there is the added dimension of air warfare. Recreated and dramatised exclusively from the German point of view, it depicts a more genteel, though nonetheless ruthless and unforgiving environment.

If criticism might be levelled at this gem of film-making, it can only come from a purely modern perspective. It is difficult to fault, simply because in and of itself, it is an important historical document. While from an "entertainment" point of view, the relentless repetition of artillery-fire, machine-guns, explosions and troop movements through trenches can quickly become numbing, the fact is that that was then the nature of warfare. For many in those original audiences, the scenes depicted would have been pages from their actual experience, twenty years before. Visceral in their power and impact.

And tragically, for many of them too, such terrors would soon be visited upon them again.

Furlough on Parole (1938)

Light, but with something to say.

[7/10 · 25 September 2014]

What lifts this otherwise fairly predictable narrative just a little above the ordinary, is the diverse range of minor stories which it very simply crafts, and which thus form and drive it. These stories of the common man and woman are played out effectively against a backdrop of impending social upheaval; of rationing at home, of nascent socialism, and the ultimate betrayal of the military by the left, the profiteers and the defeatists.

It is 1918, and the fifth year of the Great War is looming. Despite a period of convalescence, the young Lt. Prätorius and his men are destined once more for the front. But for this trainload of mostly Berliners, there is no plan for any leave, and even with a 6 hour stop-over in their home city before the next train, they will be restricted to the station. For all, this is an intolerable situation.

We are entitled to leave! No. A hero's death is all we are entitled to.

Berlin however is a different city to the one they left so many years ago. It is a haven for deserters. A man could quite easily disappear if he wished. And while Prätorius trusts his men implicitly, he knows the risks. It would be his head that would be served up should any of them be given permission to visit family and loved ones, and not return. No. Again, no!

But of course, cracks once opened quickly become floodgates. First it is Hartmann, who on more than one occasion had saved the Lieutenant on the battlefield. You must be back by 6!

On my word of honour!

His is soon followed by the inevitable swarm of requests… please, my pregnant wife… please, my mother…. my music professor… And so it goes. The handshake. Urlaub auf Ehrenwort! Yes, I'll be back half an hour before our train leaves, until all that is left is a handful of non-Berliners, there to wait it out with the anxious Prätorius.

It is interesting to note that during these scenes, we hear the first rumblings of revolution in the new Berlin, as a group of civilians exhort the men to go home: "The war is all rubbish anyway, let them finish the war themselves!"

For the men who have hurriedly, expectantly, departed, to take in the ecstasy that is a mere handful of hours of freedom, their anticipation is met with all manner of realities: the delights of family, of culture and aesthetics; the temptations of the flesh, or of Communism or of the high life. Each man or group to his own. Finding love or losing it. From bliss to betrayal, they will experience it all in their own way.

And again those signposts to unrest: "End the War"…"Revolution Will Come". The posters on the wall of the crowded bar, with its Communists, shirkers and deserters, all out for a good time.

"Emile, this is how we live everyday! You'd be mighty stupid if you went out again onto that mess. We need a few more brave men for the Party!

The hours tick by. 6.10, and the train leaves in 20 minutes. None have returned.

But you can probably anticipate the final scenes.

Yes, they all do – all of them - in their own way, in their own nick of time.

That "damned sense of duty" called them back, once more to war.

And of course, in 1938 Germany when Urlaub auf Ehrenwort - Leave With Honour - was released, there could be no taint, no question of anything other than such honour and commitment when it came to portraying the common soldier, stabbed in the back as he was to be by the November Criminals. The appeasers.

From among the ranks who returned, disenchanted, both the left and the right would recruit support. But it was the right which would benefit overwhelmingly from their numbers, their sense of duty and their organisational strength.

There can be no denying that this is a relatively minor piece of National Socialist era cinema. Yet, thanks to the benign script, which is in no way affected by the overt propaganda of so many of its predecessors and contemporaries, it does not suffer at all as entertainment. Indeed, with war about to come to Germany once more, it would serve quite nicely as a vehicle for reminding the nation of the values which had served it so well in the past: honour and faith. However tragically misguided such faith would ultimately prove to be.

Of note among the cast is the wonderful character actor, Fritz Kampers, who plays Gefreiter Hartmann; the first to be given leave and (almost) the last to return. Kampers was as prodigious a performer as he was an outstanding one, appearing in such classics as Westfront 1918 and the sublime Kameradschaft. As an actor, he is on another plane entirely to the balefully pretentious, though sadly ubiquitous, Carl Raddatz, whose thankfully minor role here may well have been his best- ever performance.

Cyankali (1930)

An important Weimar-era document

[8/10 · 24 September 2014]

Hans Tintner's 1930 film, Cyankali – Cyanide - is as much a social commentary and plea for liberalised abortion laws, as it is a highly watchable, if harrowing, melodrama. For most of its 85 minutes, the movie is silent with inter-titles, however in the final scenes, we are magically transported into the world of the talkie, as the tragedy which has unfolded reaches its denouement.

And the scene is set, with the sobering official figures of the time: up to 800 000 abortions are performed in Germany each year, with up to 10 000 resulting in the death of the mother.

The seedy northern districts of Berlin. Poverty, unemployment and labour unrest.

The beautiful Hedwig – Heti – lives a meagre existence with her widowed mother in a typically dank apartment, but there is the promise of a better life with Paul from the factory. And telling him of her pregnancy, they both for a moment dream in beatific innocence of a perfect world, in a place of their own. Paul is an honourable man who shares her joy, and he will accept his responsibilities as a father and provider.

But they are suddenly cast adrift from that ideal future by the news that an industrial dispute has shut down the factory. How can they possibly afford a child now? The ravages of poverty on neighbouring families have been plainly evident: Mrs Witt has jumped to her death with one of her many children. The futility of a life with a drunken unemployed husband. For the 17 year old Heti, such stultifying emptiness is not an option.

Paul and his friend Max must resort to burglary – of the factory canteen no less – in an effort to put food on the table, and while this doesn't sit at all well with Heti's mother, who refuses to take part in this feast, she can't help but notice the irony: for her life of honesty, she has been repaid with hunger. And it is at that table too, as the vile landlord makes an uninvited entrance, that Heti informs her mother of her situation.

There seems no other escape from her current dark morass, than to seek medical assistance.

It is then that we are offered another stark glimpse of the times; an altogether different, though no less confronting one.

Fresh from a flirtatious consultation with an obviously well heeled – if sadly indisposed – young lady, where he fabricates a legal scenario for her to undergo an abortion, the respectable doctor makes a point of telling young Heti that he is sorry, but it is illegal in Germany to provide this service for her. The law does not take economic hardships into consideration.

The only illness she is suffering is poverty, and while her pleas may elicit some pity, she is left with no choice but to seek help elsewhere. He warns her then of the dangers which lurk beyond his doors: unclean instruments, and the dreaded cyanide, a not-uncommon method of termination. Indiscriminate and random.

But you are the one who is sending me there!

In desperation, she is drawn to a small classified notice in the newspaper which offers a discreet service to women and girls.

The termination is procured. Cynically…haggling over cost…unclean hands on unclean instruments. And to be absolutely sure, she is given a phial of liquid to take home. To take from it five drops in water.

Staggering, fevered.

Her mother knows why, but her daughter is now home. Safe at least, please.

The drops. The fever. She can't take them, and fearfully begs for help.

This won't kill me, will it mother?

And so it is at this moment that some rather interesting things begin happening; incongruous moments that were perhaps part of the original print, or which came as a result of some re-editing.

It is 1930 and we are on the cusp of sound. There were hints of this throughout the first half of Cyankali: the use of crowd noises, knocking on a door, and all the while a richly diverse, musical background. Yet then for extended periods, a white silence.

Heti's cyanide cocktail brings on the spoken – or rather – the sung word, and we find ourselves being entertained (sic) by a neighbour singing in her apartment, while accompanying herself on guitar.

Then Heti calls, vocalises, to her mother for help. Not as escape from the guitar playing neighbour, but for the physical pain she is enduring. The anxious questioning.

It is here too in the final scenes that we listen to the impassioned pleas of Max and Paul, as they are brought by police into the dying girl's room, suspected of having procured a crime against the unborn. Impassioned demands for birth control, coordinated by the state, to save women from these amateur abortionists.

Every year, 800 000 mothers end up breaking the law…A law which makes them criminals is no just law!

Heti's mother will soon be arrested for administering that fatal dose, while Heti opines to the screen, her final words: tens of thousands have to die. Will no one help us?

There is a terrible inevitability to this movie. The era of the Third Reich was near, and one is left to ponder the effect its message may have had on the movie-going public of the time. For the National Socialists, the blood of the Volk was sacrosanct. It was to be nurtured and worshiped, for in it, by it and through it, the destiny of Germany rested. Abortions were for the racially impure and the genetically suspect.

The actress Grete Mosheim, who played the tragic Heti, fled Germany for England in 1933 because of her Jewish heritage.

This is an important document from the Weimar period.

Über alles in der Welt (1941)

A simple message

[7/10 · 27 June 2014]

While Goebbels may have seen no great artistic merit in this movie, that wasn't of course a reason to dismiss it. Its appeal was to the Volksgenossen, and intended to create positive national sentiments.

Pretty much most every propaganda button is pressed, as it should be; no, as it must be, and in this it is no different from any similarly pitched movie, from any side of any trench in any war. Subtlety is lost on the masses and sledge-hammers are very good at cracking nuts. There is though, no tug on the heart strings that other examples of the propagandist's art such as Hitlerjunge Quex or Ohm Kruger, do so well.

Ritter has embraced all branches of the armed forces and from each planted examples of daring-do. Included is a Luftwaffe rescue from English soil and the Kriegsmarine ensuring that their once captive compatriots reach safety in the warm and welcoming arms of the Spanish.

The enemy here – the British, French and Poles - are treated with contempt and disdain: at once gullible, manipulative, conniving and treacherous, not to mention swarthy or subject to unflattering camera angles and lighting. They are no match at all really for German industry, bravery and cunning. And that relentless good humour and stoicism!

It is the German who is sporting; who is honest and forthright in his and her intentions.

While for the military hardware enthusiast, this movie doesn't quite rank with Besatzung Dora, DIII 88 or Stukas! (all of which are also available from IHF), there are nonetheless fine moments to be had.

This particular print is generally an excellent one, even if the sound is sometimes a little muddy. Subtitling was a challenge though in that much dialogue literally flies off the screen. A good case perhaps for less being more. But who am I to quibble? Despite the inclusion of the ubiquitous but execrable Carl Raddatz, for which I've docked it a star, this is a fine example of Ritter's superior skills, and the art of not so subtle movie making with a message. Even if delivered wrapped around a brick.

Lore (2012)

Lore on page and screen

[9/10 · 29 December 2012]

A fascinating piece of cinema, and worth every star it is given; a glimpse into an apocalyptic and fertile but all too rarely explored place and time.

Yes, on second viewing, those sometimes camera angles began to grate, but there were more than enough pearls to make up for that.

Of greater significance for me though were the divergences between Shortland's vision, and that of Rachel Seiffert in her book, The Dark Room, from which Lore is taken. (Helmut, the first story, deals with the period up to the end of the war; Lore the immediate aftermath, and Micha, an exploration of the question of war guilt from the perspective of the late 1990s.)

The short story depicts none of the overt sexual tension which ultimately developed between Lore and Thomas on screen (note when they are in the abandoned bomb-making facility), and indeed, Seiffert's Thomas was an emaciated and sparsely-toothed older man, far removed from Malina' s character.

The eeler, the boat and the crossing of the river. This was a critical moment in the movie. A point from which there is no turning back. Lore's cry of "what have we done?", those so few words, is as much a comment on her and Thomas's personal guilt as it is on Germany's collective responsibility. But the scene, an example of the violence this movie so vividly portrays – and for which it is often criticised – was again not contained in the book.

And finally, the depiction of Oma's idyll on the Baltic Coast, Lore's ultimate destination, untouched by war and a refuge; a refuge too for her unreconstructed grandmother. Your parents did nothing wrong. No such idyll in Seiffert's version though, but rather a far more realistic and utterly devastated urban Hamburg. Watch Gerhard Lamprecht's sublime Somewhere in Berlin to get an idea.

These few points of comparison though are not meant to be any criticism of such a magnificent movie, but rather they are examples of how, so often, screen adaptations can go down unforeseen pathways.

A motion picture and a short story of significant merit.

Mashenka (1942)

A Russian pearl

[10/10 · 9 July 2012]

Russia on the eve of the Winter War with Finland, and for the young and awkward Mashenka, life is work, and work is life. By day at the telegraph office a relentless stream of demanding customers, and then by night, study at home, alone. A future escape and a chance for something more. She listens to the romantic escapades of her co-workers Klava and Vera, and can only wish that one day her turn might come: that a man may say that he finds her pretty.

Then one night.

An evening air-raid drill sees her miss the last trolley-car, and so she is forced to catch a taxi to her home on the edge of town. Alyesha, the dashing driver, is an amiable sort of character, with a chivalry which ensures that, even though her meagre funds run out with some distance yet to go, he will still take her to her door.

A shooting star. Above us Andromeda. Masha, will you meet me tomorrow night in town, beneath the clock?

In beatific innocence then, yes. Please, may it now be my turn?

And so under the clock: Alyesha, where are you? Hours. I should have known it is not yet my turn.

But all is not lost, for Masha soon learns that in reality Alyesha has been struck down by a fever and is struggling to recuperate in the men's dormitory at the garage where he works. So an utterly selfless opportunity presents itself: she will now watch over him and nurse him back to health while sitting at the table by his bedside, studying. To show him my devotion.

Once recovered, it is obvious though that Alyesha cannot commit himself. Indebted yes, but there are still friends with whom to drink and rove, and an opportunity presents itself far away, where streets are paved with gold. This is now his chance to better himself and make good. Initial anger and frustration at the impending separation turns to resignation and acceptance. Time enough then. I will wait.

And after this time of separation, a triumphal return. A celebration. Mashenka, fellow workers and friends. Then enter the worldly-wise Vera.

While it is more a matter of naïveté, unfortunate coincidence and misunderstanding than something inherently rapacious on Vera's part (though that satin dress was sure going to turn heads in the worker's paradise, baby), most everyone else seems to feel that Alyesha has become somewhat distracted. The hopelessly devoted Mashenka, not appreciating the purity of her own inner beauty (or Alyesha's breathtaking stupidity) feels confirmed in her despondency that no, it is just not her time for love, yet again.

The war. The world has turned. The chance meeting in the transit camp.

Mashenka the now field medical officer. Alyesha the recuperating tank crewman. The spark reignited. The self-consciousness. The things unsaid. The sudden call for her to leave before he can tell her. The written note pinned to the wall in the hope that it will be read.

Equal parts tiny jewel of a love story and call to arms, this is a whimsically lyrical and most beautiful film. While one of countless variations on the theme of love and loss in wartime, it is nonetheless, especially through the utterly beguiling portrayal of innocence and stoicism by Valentina Karaveyeva as Mashenka – Masha – a rare and transcendent Russian treat.

Spring 1941 (2007)

Dark, but worthwhile.

[1 October 2011]

Renowned composer and musician returns to Poland with her daughter for the opening of a concert hall dedicated in her honour. She in turn seeks out a country farmhouse and its owner, but is left in no doubt that she is not welcome there.

Another movie told in flash-back, this follows the plight of Jewish surgeon Artur Planck, his wife Clara and their family as they seek to escape persecution in occupied Poland. Based on the life of composer Ida Fink, it paints a very bleak picture indeed, and a very complex one, emotionally.

Rural Emilia is forlornly awaiting her husband's return from the front and she takes the family in, giving them shelter in her loft.

Now here it begins to get a bit tricky.

Emilia has long held a torch for Artur (she confesses to him that she had once visited his surgery for an examination while not actually being ill), and his presence here could be a mutually beneficial one, despite the danger in which it places her. His wife upstairs though is an inconvenience.

On the pretext that Clara's "Jewish appearance" would be a liability if she were to be anywhere but up in the loft, and that Artur could pass as a local (a visiting brother?) she encourages him to do the necessary work around the farm and thus be in a position to spend more time with her. And he does, albeit reluctantly, for his wife is after all just upstairs. For her part though she has become resigned to survival, even at the cost of her marriage and so she sanctions this parlous and already tempestuous relationship.

Emilia's expectations increase incrementally and she wants this new union to have legitimacy. Wartime yes, but Catholic Poland is still Catholic Poland.

The final scenes are harrowing but answer the many questions which had been earlier posed.

A very dark, but worthwhile film, though the "classic war movie" label is somewhat misleading. Rather, a movie set in wartime.

Max Schmeling (2010)

Should have been much, much better.

[1 October 2011]

Crete, 1944, and Fallschirmjäger Max Schmeling, thought to have fallen in battle, is miraculously found alive. Told in flashback, it is the story of the rise and fall from grace of Germany's once world champion boxer.

While he was winning, he was a Nazi poster-boy (though his own political sentiments were far more prosaic and membership of the Party was never a consideration.) But having a Jewish manager very quickly became a liability, and when he eventually lost a rematch to the black American Joe Louis in 1938, the end was nigh.

This movie offers a very sympathetic portrait of a man of obvious principal, but it is poorly made and poorly cast: Henry Maske (as Max) has all the acting prowess of, well, a boxer. The fight scenes were merely probing and feinting and ducking and weaving - watch "Napola" for a model of how it should be done. And after all, this is the story of a boxer, so they could have done much more to get this right.

Furthermore, the uniforms (especially those of high-ranking political figures such as Göring, played by a Fred Nile look-alike) were abysmal fantasies.

These things jar in a movie of supposed quality, and detract significantly from whatever value the narrative may have.

(And the jacket sleeve of my copy, with not so much as a boxing glove or spittoon in sight, but rather explosions, tanks, aircraft and what appears to be a crumbling Reichstag, alludes to something other than the actual content of the movie itself.)

Could have been, should have been, much, much better.

Irgendwo in Berlin (1946)

A simple tale

[7/10 · 26 August 2010]

Gerhard Lamprecht's "Irgendwo in Berlin" (Somewhere in Berlin) is a simple tale, set in the immediate post-war period. It is one of the "Trümmerfilm" - "rubblefilms" - shot on location amid shattered cityscapes, inhabited by transitory, spectral figures. Because of its focus on the lives of children, Irgendwo shares more in common with Rossellini's "Germany Year Zero" than, say Staudte's "The Murderers Are Among Us". It is ultimately however much more uplifting than either and its final scene hints at a promise of redemption and fulfillment via the dignity of reconstruction.

For Gustav, his friend Willi and a host of other children, the ruins provide a playground. For those like petty thief Waldemar Hunke, they provide opportunity: he has just stolen a purse with a considerable sum and in a bid to evade arrest, has conveniently hidden it behind a photograph in Gustav's house.

There too is the old artist, the black marketeer and the shell-shocked young veteran who stands silent sentinel, gazing across the ruins from his mother's apartment at the comings and goings below.

And then a ragged stranger, knowing.

Paul, Gustav's father, the returning POW.

Now surely, the family garage will rise again, but neither Paul nor Germany are what they once were. His thanks for stumbling across the hidden wallet and returning it to its owner? Two cheap cigars and a pointed reminder from Waldemar of just how grateful a nation can be. The new order is each for himself.

Honour though resides among the children. Willi, orphaned, Artful Dodger to black-marketeer Birke's Fagin, turns the tables on his once mentor. He is no coward either, and to prove it, scales the crumbling shell of a building in defiance and to the horror of a swelling crowd.

The sentinel: "A hero! A hero!" The fall. Young Edmund from "Germany Year Zero". Willi's glorious death as metaphor for a people's loss of innocence.

But from the ashes, something is about to rise. "Willi promised not to let me down." And as in some Pieter Bruegel landscape, so the children mass.

This is a fine film, yet without the characteristically darker edges of others in the genre. Keep an eye out for landmarks too, such as the damaged Oberbaumbrücke.

Of special note is the appearance of veteran silent-film villain Fritz Rasp, as Waldemar Hunke. He featured in such classics as Fritz Lang's "Metropolis", GW Pabst's "Diary of a Lost Girl" and Lamprecht's 1931 film, "Emile and the Detectives".

"Irgendwo in Berlin" has recently been released with English subtitles by the DEFA Film Library.

Rotation (1949)

A beautiful metaphor

[9/10 · 21 July 2010]

Rotation looks at the schisms which affected families during the period leading up to and immediately after the Reich.

Proud, but relentlessly pursued by unemployment, Hans eventually becomes a machinist with a printing company. He has married a fine woman and they have raised a fine son. He is no friend of the Party however and is being asked some rather direct questions about why he is still not a member. His employer too makes it quite plain that without Party membership, future employment with the firm just might become difficult.

His wife's brother, Kurt has fled the country for being a subversive and this connection does not help Hans's parlous situation.

After the brother secretly returns to Germany, to continue his role as a militant, he comes to Hans for a request. His expertise is needed to repair the broken printing press which the group uses to publish their subversive pamphlets. Oh dear, and just when life was looking up too. He decides to take the chance, and all would have been fine until one evening when young Hellmuth his son is stuck for the answer to a crossword puzzle. Consulting the family dictionary, he finds more than the answer, for hidden in its pages is a pamphlet. And as a loyal Hitler Youth member, he must of course consult the authorities.

This movie is told in flash-back, from Hans's prison cell. It is a tragic but ultimately uplifting story of forgiveness which again becomes a metaphor for Germany's rise from the ashes. There is a particularly beautiful scene in the end which has the son and his bride to be unknowingly mirroring the actions of his parents so many years before. The son and his bride come to a fork in a country road, and they follow it to the left. Years ago, his parents had wandered this very same road, but their path led to the right.

Request Concert (1940)

A beautifully simple love story

[21 July 2010]

This wonderful piece of light entertainment has just been re-released with English subtitles and it makes the perfect companion piece to the Wunschkonzert CDs already available from various sources.

The movie revolves around a simple theme: the handsome young air force officer Herbert (Carl Raddatz) meets the beautiful young woman Inge (Ilse Werner) at the opening of the Berlin Olympics, but on the eve of their marriage he is sent incognito to Spain as part of the Condor Legion. No time for adequate farewells.

And the years slip by without any news. Has he forsaken her? Then by chance, while listening (with countless other millions) to Sunday's request concert, she hears his name…Major Koch. His adoring men have put in a request on his behalf to hear the Olympic Fanfare over the radio waves. Of course! He's alive and he hasn't forgotten! And just as the Olympic torch ignited the flame in Berlin, so this request ignites again the feeling of hope in our young Inge. There must have been a reason for his silence. The road to reunion is not an easy one however and both circumstance and misunderstandings conspire to keep them apart until the very (happy) end.

Interwoven with this light melodrama is some rousingly patriotic newsreel footage of both the Olympic opening ceremony, and the Condor Legion in action, but there is also a second important theme: the significance of the actual Wunschkonzert performances themselves as necessary morale boosters for both the serving troops and their families at home. Goebbels understood this perfectly and apparently provided the inspiration for director Eduard von Borsody.

There are moments of comedy as we follow the escapades of two enlisted men (who were also a noted comedy due of the period) bringing a captured pig to Berlin, and great pathos as a mother sitting alone at home listens to the powerfully moving voice of Wilhelm Streinz singing "Gute Nacht Mutter". Her young son had recently saved his unit, but in the process had sacrificed his own life.

For me, it was worth the price of admission simply to see not only the stunningly beautiful Ilse Werner, but also the actual musicians and performers who had hitherto been merely voices.

The movie and associated music CDs are highly recommended.

Shock Troop (1934)

An authentic and moving experience

[8/10 · 21 July 2010]

Strosstrupp 1917 is essentially a 107 minute artillery barrage along various sectors of the Western Front; from Champagne to Cambrai via Flanders. It paints a vivid and sobering picture of the ebb and flow of trench warfare in an eerily cratered and water-logged landscape, bereft of everything but the detritus of war.

Standing knee-deep for days on end in claustrophobic bunkers. Waiting for an imminent French assault while deprived of food and water. Gas and collapsing shelters.

The realism depicted here is made palpable by the use of actual munitions and explosive charges in great number. The randomly heaving and cascading earth, and the rain of mud and debris would have presented very real dangers to the on-screen participants (SA and Wehrmacht extras as well as a handful of professional actors) and production crew alike, such is the proximity of the camera to the action.

While the enemy are portrayed with a genuine dignity – the English and Scots in particular - there is one amusing scene which ensues when the German battalion at one stage finds itself surrounded. Two men volunteer to make the perilous trek across French lines in an effort to deliver a vital message to the Regimental HQ. While successful, they are however captured on the return journey and interrogated. A good dose of Gallic bile follows – "Bavarian swine!" – then the obligatory spit, followed by the gullible acceptance of obviously fanciful "intelligence' delivered by our Strosstupp heroes. And then as luck would have it, they manage to escape.

This lifting of tension is however all too fleeting.

There is one critical piece of dialogue - delivered quite late in the film, which gives it the political clout one would expect. A dying German soldier is being comforted by a comrade:

"Please be honest. Tell me, is this a swindle?"

"A swindle? The war? Oh no, how could you think it's a swindle? We're doing it for our people back home, for your wife and your children, to keep our country from being devastated like Flanders.

Your meadows and your fields…if we weren't here your homeland would look like this."

But it is upon reading the dead soldier's last letter from home that this concept of a "swindle" is brutally hammered home. Her revelations from the home-front elicit this reaction from the readers:

"An MG-42 should fire into the lot of them…something's going on back home, and we're putting our head on the block for that society. They're not really worth it."

"We'll have to clean our house when we get home, but we'll have to start at the top, the swindle must be coming from there, otherwise, ordinary people wouldn't talk like that."

"I'll be right beside you!"

The November treason…the Diktat. Plans to avenge the stab in the back are forming already in the heart of the common man and as the movie concludes, so the viewing audience is exhorted to remember this betrayal. Directed by Hans Zöberlein and based on his own published front-line experiences, Strosstrup 17 was designed to counter the pacifist message of Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, and Adolf Hitler even penned a brief introduction to the text.

According to the movie's liner notes, Zöberlein himself was a member of the 1923 Munich Putsch and went on to become a Werewolf leader at war's end. He was sentenced to death for the murder of Penzburg's socialist mayor on April 28, 1945, but that sentence was commuted, and he served a prison term until 1958.

He died in 1964.

The importance of this movie is derived more from its authenticity and visual power than from its obvious propaganda message. Worthwhile.

Deutschland, erwache! (1968 TV Movie)

A tantalising overview of Nazi cinema

[8/10 · 21 July 2010]

This 1968 German documentary on the use of film as a propaganda tool during the period of the Third Reich has been given an English voice-over and subtitles courtesy of IHF and provides an interesting, albeit tantalisingly brief introduction to the topic.

The limitations of the medium, in this case 86 minutes to cover 13 years and 26 sample films mean that it should be seen as more a springboard for further exploration rather than an in-depth investigation in its own right. My first viewing left me somewhat disappointed because I was expecting more critical analysis, and while to some extent it does exist, it is more the case that the movie segments are allowed to speak for themselves, with excerpts designed to support the various chapter themes such as "Dying for Germany", "Brown or Red", "Back to the Fatherland" etc. This makes sense, and has allowed Erwin Leiser to hone in on some classic scenes and dialogue to support his thesis that "the misuse of mass media by a totalitarian system proves the necessity of a free, democratic social order."

Take for example the scene from "Morgenrot", supposedly the first feature film seen by Adolf Hitler upon becoming Chancellor. The crew of a stricken WWI U-Boat faces an impossible dilemma: they are unable to surface and there are not enough escape suits to go around. The captain orders his men to don the available suits and escape, leaving him and his executive officer to their fate. Ah, but there is no way they will accept this. It is everyone or no-one says the crew. Touched by this loyalty, the captain is then led to eulogise: "We Germans may not know much about living, but dying? That we certainly can do!" Thus, the "main theme of National Socialist propaganda – dying for Germany" is perfectly illustrated.

That there were a staggering 1150 feature films produced in the period is testament to both the resilience (and compliance) of the German film industry and the vision of the Propaganda Ministry. While only a relatively small percentage of these movies were designed as simple propaganda tools, Leiser implies that everything which was produced in the period should still be seen as supporting the cause, from the benign comedy, through to musicals and melodramas.

There are important scenes from the famous (Hitlerjunge Quex, Ich Klage An, Kolberg) through to the more obscure (Frisians in Peril, Hans Westmar). And there are of course omissions such as SA Mann Brand and the classic anti-Communist diatribe, GPU, but it would be impossible to include everyone's complete list of personal favourites.

Ultimately then, this documentary should be seen as providing an ideal companion to such reference sources as Hilmar Hoffmann's "The Triumph of Propaganda, Film and National Socialism 1933-1945" (Berghahn, 1996), Aristotle Kallis's "Nazi Propaganda and the Second World War" (Palgrave, 2008) and Antje Ascheid's "Hitler's Heroines, Stardom and Womanhood in Nazi Cinema" (Temple UP, 2003). William Gillespie and Joel Nelson's "Film Posters of the Third Reich" is a good visual reference as well.

(As a footnote, it is also worthwhile considering the stresses in German – and indeed European - society at around the time of the program's release. This was a period of protest and social upheaval where a new generation began to openly question their parents' responsibility for the rise of National Socialism. According to Leiser, the call of "Germany Awake" was in fact deliberately designed to send those parents to sleep; to follow the new order unquestioningly.)

Der Rat der Götter (1950)

Somewhat turgid, but oh, the stereotypes!

[6/10 · 21 July 2010]

"The riveting story of the collaboration between Nazi scientists and chemical giant IG Farben"?

Perhaps.

There would be few movies with a cast of more morally bankrupt characters than this. A classic of cold war propaganda (1950), and dedicated to "the friends of freedom all over the world" it is of some passing interest.

Read all about it! Brilliant young scientist, idealist with a social conscience who is appalled by the company's manufacture of poison gas, rocket fuel and explosives… Manipulative industrialists who conspire to support Hitler; their sole aim to line their own pockets with the massive profits to be had from travelling hand in glove with the military…Corrupt American companies and officials in cahoots with these unscrupulous barons, willing partners in a war against the real enemy – communism!

Oh dear, such a band of stereotypes. The American connection, one Mr Lawson, is the go-between for US interests both industrial and governmental in war-time Germany. He is a ringer for Boris Badenov, I kid you not. AND watch out for Mabel, his wise-cracking associate. She must be heard to be believed. (German is obviously not her mother tongue, and if you're familiar with Glenn Miller in his famous radio conversations with Ilse Weinberger, you'll know how painful it can get.)

In the Nuremberg courtroom the whole collusion scandal is set to explode, but between personal massages in their cells and a total disregard for any judicial process (knowing the prosecution case has been fixed from high up so as to not ask the tough questions), the buck is passed down the line. No-one – owners or directors - has any knowledge of just what terrible shenanigans those evil Nazis got up to with the company's inventive concoctions. "Doctor, this line of questioning is making me unwell, please wheel me outside."

And so the Council of the Gods – the grand title the industrialists gave to themselves – is ultimately slapped on the wrist with a limp lettuce leaf, neatly sidestepping any penalty for their crimes. Their fortunes remain at their disposal in Switzerland. They are merely waiting for the right opportunity.

Returning to the company's massive factory complex at war's end (left completely untouched by allied bombing, thanks to the secret deals between Mr Lawson, the Council and the US government – you gotta love the accuracy of their bomb-sights), our idealist scientist organises his fellow researchers in the manufacture of items beneficial to mankind – not plasma screens, but fertilizers and the like. All looks set for a reclaiming of the moral high ground, an atonement for past sins and the establishment of a post-war worker's utopia, when in step the shadowy figures who control the money and the big political agenda. The original regime is reinstated and so too is the production of sinister matériel.

Down the line, there is an explosion of Krakatoan proportions, a confrontation between labour (led by our young idealist) and the bosses, and a finale that would not have left a dry eye in the house (or a dry seat depending on where one's allegiances lay).

I found the first half of this movie to be somewhat turgid, as the behind-the-scenes machinations were played out by comically ruthless, dandified, and utterly one dimensional figures. As the Nuremberg scenes progressed and the success of the military industrial conspiracy became apparent, there were some redeeming factors and the pace quickened.

Worthwhile if only to get a glimpse at what the other side was thinking about life at the big end of town in the Third Reich, and for a cavalcade of the most dastardly villains. It is quite heavy handed in its techniques and is by no means a cinematic gem. An attempt yes to portray the same dilemmas and post-war introspection as classics such as Rotation, The Second Track and The Murderers Are Among Us, but with nowhere near their level of finesse and poignancy.

Das zweite Gleis (1962)

Sublime East German Noir

[10/10 · 20 July 2010]

Night-time in the switching yard, and Walter Brock, the affable railway official stumbles across two employees helping themselves to some freight. It's dark, but he's sure he could identify one of them, and as they flee, he orders an immediate lock-down of the area. Hordes of railway police descend (literally), and an impromptu line-up is arranged.

Yes, I think that's him!

But as they stare at each other, there is a sudden flash of some other recognition on Brock's part, and a questioning, searching why do I also know you from the offender.

No, sorry, says Brock. I don't think it's him after all. I was mistaken. And from here it's a tightly scripted visual and thematic feast which unlocks a secret hidden from Brock's daughter, about her past and the fate of her mother. This secret entraps one man and frees another. The yard-gates close on some and they open for others.

Why Brock's sudden determination to leave a fine and indispensable position with the railways, to begin some new life with his daughter in Rostock? Why the insatiable desire of Erwin Runge, the original suspect, to recall the face of his accuser?

Your name isn't Brock, it's Merkel.

My mother was killed in the bombing of Küstrin.

But Küstrin was never bombed.

The Blockleiter.

This is a movie of awkward angles, skewed light, shadow and steam, industrial grey and close ups. Dirty and deserted landscapes. Like the railway? You're in for a treat. Perfect Noir.

This is possibly the best of that small but essential cluster of East German movies which tackles the legacy of a Nazi past, and which includes The Murderers Are Among Us and Rotation.

Such a taut movie! Such a twist! Look too at the photography of O. Winston Link to get some idea of the visuals in store for you. A classic of the genre; an obscure cinematic treasure!

Die Abenteuer des Werner Holt (1965)

Reminiscent of "The Bridge"

[9/10 · 20 July 2010]

For how long can concepts of honour and obligation withstand the onslaught of reality? Both were rebels and born to a certain privilege: Werner Holt the son of an esteemed IG Farben chemist and Gilbert Wolzow the scion of a military family; his father a colonel killed on the Eastern Front and his uncle a General. Werner, the eager but apolitical patriot. Gilbert the blinkered National Socialist.

Told in a series of flashbacks near war's end, as a motley group of Panzertruppen, HJ and Volkssturm attempt to forestall the Russian advance, this is a remarkable film. Reminiscent at once of "The Bridge" in its uncompromising depiction of futility, director Joachim Kunert paints a broader though no less bleak canvas of the final days of the Reich: marauding SS units meting out summary justice to civilian and military alike. The questioning of vows of fidelity to Fuhrer and Fatherland in the face of insurmountable odds. Was it all a lie? Kids, you've no idea how we've been swindled.

Despite the bonds of friendship, forged through High School and HJ service, Werner must ultimately question his friend's blind acceptance of the dead-end to which National Socialism has led them. And in so doing he makes a fateful choice, one with apocalyptic consequences.

The seeds of doubt take root in a critical scene when Werner makes contact with his father. A brilliant chemist he may have been, but his refusal to take part in the production of certain "extermination" chemicals has led to him being labeled "politically unreliable." Demotion, family separation and divorce soon followed.

Under the emblem that you wear on your arm, in Germany's name, the Nazis have unleashed the most barbaric war in history. And they're losing it.

Then ultimately there is the saw-mill.

Why are they all against us? They'll do the same things to us if we don't win. That's why we must fight to the end.

One makes a choice. The other has the choice made for him. The house of cards falls, but in the cruelest of ways. The final scenes are breathtaking in both their brutality and their poignancy.

An uncompromising movie, every one of its 164 minutes makes for riveting, if unnerving viewing, and this is aided by the genius of cinematographer Rolf Sohre. The eccentric noir angles and full-screen close-ups typify his style and they can be seen to further great advantage in another of Kunert's classic DEFA films, "Das Zweite Gleis" (The Second Track).

I accuse (1941)

An important historical document.

[9/10 · 20 July 2010]

"Any legal system that requires a terminal patient to endure pointless suffering without the benefit of relief is unnatural and inhumane. Nature lets things die quickly when life is no longer viable. Medical science with its pills and its drugs insists on artificially delaying the mercy of a quick, natural death, even when a cure or improvement is completely impossible."

This is far more than a piece of fine dramatic cinema with a superior cast. The writing is high-wire taut and its courtroom scenes in particular make for riveting viewing. Ich klage an must surely have presented to German society a most credible and utterly compelling argument for, at the very least, a rational debate on the subject of euthanasia. And it is not merely a vehicle for some sinister National Socialist doctrine, but rather a beautifully moving and profoundly disturbing document of the period, with a relevance undiminished by its age or the political system which held sway at the time.

At the piano, her left hand falters.

Brilliant medical researcher Thomas Heyt has been appointed to a professorship in Munich, and at an intimate gathering to celebrate the event, the first signs of something amiss with his vivacious young wife Hanna appear. Accompanying her on cello, Dr Bernhard Lang. Had he simply asked Hanna for marriage years before, rather than introducing her to his student friend Thomas, she would have readily accepted. He has now held a torch for her ever since, but respects unreservedly the love which binds his two friends.

Hanna hopes that this sudden strange sensation is a sign of a longed-for pregnancy, but as her condition quite rapidly deteriorates and paralysis begins to ravage her body, it becomes evident that something far less benign is occurring. Bernhard's tests lead to an unmistakable diagnosis – Multiple Sclerosis. A certain and painful death. And as husband Thomas works tirelessly in his laboratory to discover the cure which he feels sure can be found in time, Bernhard does what he can to ease her ever-increasing suffering.

The medicine. In small doses a necessary palliative. She wants to know more.

"Her life was becoming an unbearable torture both physically and spiritually. She saw her husband suffer as a result, and was unable to release herself from her pain because of the paralysis. Otherwise she would have done it herself."

Thomas will help me one way or the other.

Because I loved her more, I did it.

As the drama then moves into the courtroom, we are assailed with the tightest and most thought-provoking of scripts. This aspect made for absolutely mesmeric viewing, and the distillation of the language into subtitles provided no barrier whatsoever. Accused of murder, the moral dilemmas now take hold. Expert medical witnesses are called. Was it the overdose which actually killed Hanna or could it have been the actual disease? What acts are incompatible with a doctor's oath and why? When does the relief of suffering become murder?

There is one small but critical scene in this movie upon which so much hinges. It is but one powerful image among so many others:

Hanna's death has left Bernhard a broken man. His friend's intervention has taken the life of the woman they both loved. It is then that he opens a letter. The parents of a young girl he had once successfully treated request that he see them as soon as possible, and it is behind a locked door in a children's ward that he is left to ponder the legacy of his life-saving work: "She's blind, she's deaf, she's demented. It's wonderful you healed her doctor, instead of letting the poor creature die."

We are one step from a stunning climax.

"The right to kill shouldn't be given to a doctor alone, these final medical decisions should be left to the state."

There are very few visual references to betray this movie's Third Reich origins. Only once, on a back wall in Thomas's office, do we fleetingly see the portrait of Adolf Hitler. The legal robes bear the appropriate Hoheitszeichen, and we catch a glimpse of the Hitlergruβ as the court resumes after an adjournment, but that's about it. The almost avuncular judge does however make a stunning contrast to the rabidly hypothalamic Roland Freisler of the July 20 show-trials.

Heidemarie Hatheyer's performance in particular as the young wife is transcendent.

Wunder des Fliegens: Der Film eines deutschen Fliegers (1935)

The wonder of flight indeed!

[9/10 · 18 July 2010]

Wunder des Fliegens, 1935. DVD

As one might expect, the flight sequences make up a substantial proportion of this gripping movie and in themselves provide a significant level of excitement and entertainment. There is action aplenty, with stunts and acrobatics regularly verging on the suicidal, but it is as much the skill of the cinematographer, Hans Schneeberger and his camera operators in their chase-planes or remote alpine vantage points, which makes this movie the visual treat that it is.

From the opening credits, where Hermann Göring as Reichsminister der Luftfahrt features prominently, through to the finale with its rousing male chorus and fly-past, this is an unashamedly patriotic call to arms, or rather wings, glorifying the pilot as the modern-day knight of the air. But apart from the occasional visual reference to a portrait of Adolf Hitler, there are no overtly political statements being made and this only serves to enhance the movie's character.

To his mother's chagrin, young Heinz Muthesius is infatuated with flight; she doesn't want to see the same fate befall him that did his father, a pilot killed in battle. A chance meeting then with famed aviator Ernst Udet (who plays himself) leads the older man to become the younger's mentor, whisking him away on joyflights (!) or to his Berlin apartment (!!) and even to Switzerland (!!!). All unchaperoned. Ah, but life was simpler then.

When Heinz finally gains his glider pilot's wings and flies into a blizzard on the Zugspitze, tragedy strikes, and it is left to Udet as the only man capable of the necessary heroism to come to the rescue. Stirring stuff indeed.

The extended newsreel footage interwoven within this movie provides a real bonus. There are solo displays by Udet and others at Tempelhof for example in which the maneuvers almost defy belief. Then later, there are actual landings on snow covered mountain-sides, and flights both under bridges and through aircraft hangars.

Furthermore, Udet's apartment is a virtual shrine to aviation and there is a scene in which young Heinz surveys the many portraits and objects on its walls. The camera lingers for a brief moment… there… the portrait of a young fighter pilot named Herman Göring. Then we move on to Manfred von Richthofen and the music changes to a most plaintive rendition of "Ich hatt einen Kameraden". Cut to further newsreel footage of the great ace.

Throw in a dash of some Swiss yodeling and you have 80 minutes of pure entertainment.

Of note is the young actor Jürgen Ohlsen, who plays Heinz. Many would recall him as Heine Völker from the 1933 classic Hitlerjunge Quex, a far more blatant propaganda tool than this benign offering.

It's been called "the most visually exciting 'Mountain Film' produced during the Nazi era" and by their nature, they were fraught with significant danger to cast and crew. Add then the dimension of stunning aerobatics and you have a first-rate ripping yarn.