Before I get too far into this article, I should point out that one’s opinion of what constitutes film noir is a highly subjective one. For some, the only films that qualify are those that contain the following elements: Black-and-White film Chiaroscuro lighting Made after World War II and before JFK became president An anti-hero …
Category: Annekathrin Bürger
Red Westerns
The American West is about as far from East Germany as one can get, politically, geographically, and philosophically, but Germans have a long—some might say bizarre—love affair with America’s past, and, in particular, the lives of the Indians who roamed the plains.1 Some Germans spend their summers living in teepees, wearing feathered headdresses and face …
Cyanide
East German television looks at the issue of abortion in a teleplay that tackles the issue head on. Abortion as a hot button topic is nothing new. Witness the German playwright Friedrich Wolf's play Cyanide (Cyankali). It debuted in 1929 and made into a movie the following year. The play was first performed at the …
The Man From Canada
Spies from the West are planning to get a jet pilot in MiG to defect to West Germany and it's up to the clever Stasi agents to stop them. The first of trilogy of films features the Stasi agent Major Sander. The sixties were the decade of spy films. That’s not to say there weren’t …
Murder on Monday
Germany has given the world plenty of great films and filmmakers, but their greatest contribution to genre cinema is the Krimifilm. Literally, this just means crime film, but the Krimi is much more than that. A good Krimi has a style and structure that started in the silent era, and can still be seen in …
Fatal Error
With the protests at Standing Rock, and recent plans to privatize Indian lands for their oil deposits, this is an excellent time to take a look at Fatal Error (Tödlicher Irrtum), a 1970 western from DEFA. It’s a shame this film isn’t available with English subtitles, because this is a movie for the times, if …
Love’s Confusion
Love’s Confusion (Verwirrung der Liebe) is a 1959 romantic comedy that is similar to the ones being made in Hollywood around the same time. The story centers around Dieter, a medical student at Humboldt University, and his girlfriend, Sonja, an art student at the Berlin-Weißensee Art Academy. The two plan to meet up at a …
Track in the Night
In America, we tend to parse out films about crime into specific categories, such as heist films, detective films, film noir, mysteries, and so on. In both East and West Germany, these films are lumped into one big group: Kriminalfilme, or “crime films,” usually referred to as “Krimis.” Many West German Krimis center around a …
Farewell (Abschied)
In the history of East German films, the period between the 11th Plenum and Erich Honecker’s takeover from Walter Ulbricht is regarded as a dark time for DEFA films. That’s not to say there weren’t good, entertaining films made during this time. After all, this period saw the introduction of the Indianerfilm, Hot Summer, and …
Five Days, Five Nights
At the end of World War II, Russian soldiers went on a plunderfest across eastern Germany. Think Sherman’s March to the Sea, but with dividends. Houses were stripped of their valuables, stores were looted, and machinery was taken. Much of this looting was done on a personal level—soldiers helping themselves to the contents of the …
East German Cinema Blog 