This may be the first east-west German reconciliation movie ever, having been begun on the east side before the wall fell, and completed after. Continue reading…
German cinema
This is another post-reunification attempt to come to terms with the story of communist East Germany. Other efforts with this motive include two reviewed earlier in these pages, The Tunnel and Goodbye, Lenin.
The two parties to the conflict are several officers of the Stasi (state security force/secret police) on the one hand, and a circle of artistic types on the other. The Stasi group (led by Ulrich Mühe and Ulrich Tukur) is portrayed, not just with chilling and inhuman competence, but Continue reading…
German Der Blaue Engel; directed by Josef von Sternberg, it was the first major German sound movie.
Emil Jannings is a professor at the Gymnasium (advanced high school) whose pupils are becoming more and more unruly; he catches them with some girly pictures from the local cabaret, the Blue Angel. Something tweaks his interest, Continue reading…
The story is of a couple with a young son and daughter in East Berlin during a time period spanning the fall of the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1990. In the late 1970s, the father defects to the west without the rest of the family. Continue reading…
The setting is a dark but beautiful village in the Tirolian Alps, full of sad people. They are both drawn Continue reading…
German silent of the expressionism period, directed by Murnau. An adaption of Dracula.
Dracula or “Count Orlok” is played with stunning presence Continue reading…
Original German: Der Tunnel
(Rats. I tried to post this yesterday but the terminal timed out. Then, it would have been posted from Berlin: very apropos! Instead, you get it from Leipzig.)
This is the true story of some guys that make an elaborate attempt to help loved ones to escape from East Continue reading…
In German, with subtitles.
There are two levels at which this movie can be enjoyed. The first is a crime story structured a bit like Continue reading…
Based on the story of a minor yet successful turn-of-the-century D’Alembert opera, the basic threesome is the traveling dancer Continue reading…
Early silent. Typical of the “German Expressionism” and you soon see why: almost every set looks like Continue reading…
Original German Der Untergang.
No idea how this movie slipped through the crack for most of us when it came out. It is wonderful, terrible, everything a movie should be. Continue reading…
This movie (original German: Lola rennt) is fast paced starring Franka Potente who came to American attention a few years after this film as the girlfriend in the Bourne Identity movies.
In this story, Lola is desperate to get some money to bail out her boyfriend who has gotten into trouble. The contingency of history is explored Continue reading…
