When Martin Was Fourteen (Als Martin vierzehn war) is the story of a teenage boy who finds himself in the middle of the fighting that followed the “Kapp Putsch” in March of 1920. As with many German movies—East, West, and Unified—the films assume a level of familiarity with German history that we from other countries …
Set a Fire, the Fire Brigade Is Coming
What happens to a fire department when its town never has any fires? That was the idea behind TruTV’s comedy Tacoma FD. But it wasn’t the first time someone thought of this. It’s also the concept behind Set a Fire, the Fire Brigade Is Coming (Zünd an, es kommt die Feuerwehr), the 1979 East German …
Sleeping Beauty
The story of Sleeping Beauty (Dornröschen) is old enough that its origins are a point of debate. The Grimm Brothers felt the story had enough Germanic elements to identify it as German in origin. The French, quite rightly, would point out that the story was already well-known in France as it appeared in Charles Perrault’s …
Held for Questioning
The backstory of Held for Questioning (Der Aufenthalt) is the story of a film that was made against all odds, by a director that DEFA had, essentially, written off the books. Frank Beyer was one of the best filmmakers in East Germany. He proved this time and again, with movies such as Five Cartridges, Naked …
Isabel on the Stairs
In 1970, Chile—the most democratic of South American nations—held a presidential election that would change the course of things in that country for the next twenty years and still affects it to this day. The election was a close one. No candidate achieved a majority, but one candidate came out slightly ahead of the others …
Journey into the Nuptial Bed
East Germany had a difficult relationship with musicals. As with Western audiences, the East German public enjoyed musicals and paid to go see them. The box office was good for nearly all the musicals DEFA made, but the art form is so inherently frivolous that it drove the more stodgy politicians crazy. Making fairytale films …
Minna von Barnhelm, or the Soldier’s Fortune
Not surprisingly, most of the films that came out of the DEFA studios in East Germany were concerned with the twentieth century, that being the century when old orders were overthrown in favor of various versions of Marxist philosophy. A few films went back as far as the late nineteenth century, but concluded with the …
Continue reading Minna von Barnhelm, or the Soldier’s Fortune
Dusk: 1950s East Berlin Bohemia
Just off the Schiffbauerdamm, a street that runs along the River Spree on the north side of the river, sits the Berliner Ensemble Theater. It was founded in 1954, after Bertolt Brecht and his wife Helene Weigel left the Deutsches Theater to start their own theater. It was an ambitious project featuring a revolving stage …
Rumpelstiltskin
Kunz (Karl-Heinz Rothin) is a lazy miller who prefers to let his assistant Hans (Reinhard Michalke) do all the milling. When Hans can’t keep up, and the farmers refuse to pay, the miller falls behind in his payments to the king. Kunz tells the king’s treasurer not to worry, because his daughter Marie (Karin Lesch) …
The Fiancée
The Fiancée (Die Verlobte) is a grim film that offers very few moments of levity during its hour and 45-minute running time. It’s a women-in-prison film, but has nothing in common with the likes of Caged Heat or the dozens of other women-in-prison, exploitation films made in the 1960s and 1970s. There's nothing salacious here—just …
East German Cinema Blog 