A popular wall poster for the young people who opposed the Vietnam War read: “War is unhealthy for children and other living things.” After World War II, Germany saw the full effect of this. German fathers were either killed or imprisoned, and the mothers waiting at home fell prey to the Allied bombs. Parents would …
Tag: Fred Delmare
The Land Beyond the Rainbow
After the Wall came down and West Germany, for all intents and purposes, took over East Germany, there followed the inevitable retrospection. What the hell happened? How did we get from there to here? There were plenty of people who still believed in socialism and thought it could lead to a better world than unbridled …
Next Year at Lake Balaton
Road movies are common enough to warrant their own category. Whether the characters in a film are trying to get from point A to point B (The Straight Story, Vanishing Point), or simply enjoying the passing parade of life on the road (Easy Rider, Il Sorpasso), road movies have a special appeal. Although sometimes they …
When You’re Older, Dear Adam
Egon Günther’s 1965 comedy When You're Older, Dear Adam (Wenn du groß bist, lieber Adam) is a weird movie, made weirder still by the times in which it was made and the technique used to rebuild the film. The film tells the story of a boy who is given a magic flashlight by a swan. …
White Wolves
As discussed in previous posts, the Western genre, so popular in America, provided the folks at DEFA an excellent opportunity to explore the dangers of capitalism without having to shoehorn its politics into an ill-fitting boot. If you've ever wanted to see the evils of capitalism at work, you need look no further than the …
Fire Below Deck
Fire Below Deck (Feuer unter Deck) was first screened in theaters in 1982, and then only very briefly, but it had been scheduled to be released in 1977. This happened from time to time in East Germany when a film touched on some hot-button topic that either upset the authorities or discussed something that was …
The Falcon’s Trail
When it came to telling the truth about the American West, the East Germans had it all over Hollywood. While Hollywood was still portraying Indians as brutal savages, DEFA’s Indianerfilme gave a much more accurate picture of the events, showing that most of the wrongs were committed by the whites who felt that they had …
Don’t Forget My Little Traudel
Don’t Forget My Little Traudel (Vergesst mir meine Traudel nicht1) is the story of Gertraud (“Traudel”) Gerber, A 17-year-old whose mother died in the Ravensbrück concentration camp eleven years earlier. Since then, Traudel has been living as an orphan, but she still carries around her mother's last letter to her, which ends with the sentiment …
The Solo Sailor
There is a saying among boat owners that a boat is a “hole in the ocean you throw money into.” Suffice it to say, boat owning can be an expensive proposition. In The Solo Sailor (Die Alleinseglerin), a young woman named Christine learns first-hand the joys and sorrows of owning a boat. She has just …
Black Velvet
Black Velvet (Schwarzer Samt) is a crime film involving the manufacturer of fake passports and the attempted sabotage of a state-of-the-art loading crane at the Leipzig Trade Fair. The “Black Velvet” in the title refers to a vial of acid intended for us in the sabotage. The reason for this strange code name becomes clear …
East German Cinema Blog 