This is a highly symbolic film. On the surface it is about a man who gets imprisoned in East Germany a few months before the wall came down and gets out 11 years later to a changed world. There are quite a few memorable moments for me. Including the very first time he tries to ride the tram and purchase a ticket. The way he struggles with the new 100 German mark bill and than an old East German one, that no longer is accepted shows how out of place he was. A few minutes later we see him folding paper planes out of his Ossie (“eastie”) money. Devaluation visualized perfectly. And not just the currency’s value changed dramatically but his past, skills and future. In this new reality he would need to adjust and reinvent himself. Fortunately he is an honest, reliable, and good person. That’s what the movie is about for me. That if you have your core values down, nothing can get to you. Not even if the world collapses around you and then rebuilds itself.
It is on the edge between being optimistic and pessimistic. There is a definitely a cycle here, because the last frames are very similar to the opening ones – coming out of the jail building. But the differences are significant. At the end we see him from above as taking a cab and being comfortable with his life. At the opening scene however he was so unsure of everything around him. Also by the end he knows he can depend on some friends and family. I saw this movie at UCSB as part of a “Recent German Movies” film series. The next one (Goodbye Lenin) I already saw, but looking forward to the other four. I was a bit surprised that the department organizing this series is called: Department of Germanic, Slavic, and Semitic Studies ( http://www.gss.ucsb.edu/ ) . Inter sting combination that wouldn’t occur to me. There were about 35 people at the free screening and at least half of them was chatting in German before and after the show. I particularly enjoyed the film’s music (by Florian Appl). I probably would have liked the cinematography too (as I noticed some nice solutions), but it was a VHS tape shown on a big screen thus it wasn’t that great quality. There is much more I could write about but no time, so here are just some random notes:
- The original title of this German movie is in English and a direct quite form the movie itself. This is another sign of alienation from yourself.
- The little man can be always messed with. The (invisible) East German police officer is almost as bad as the (visible) West (unified) German one. They see only want they want to see.
- The insecurity of the prison warden in the opening scene reflects exactly my experience of police officers of 1989. They had no idea what is expected from them. Also this one was showed alone in a huge empty prison. The question arises who is the prisoner of the system.
- The empty hotel room, the porn video shop, the fancy house of the protagonist’s (ex-?)-wife are all metaphors that we all build our own prisons for ourselves, just the styles are different. Film’s website (in German only): http://www.berlinisingermany.de