We do not, but many ego.

What did the German cinema to say? What it tells what are his issues? Johanna Straub looked ten days Berlinale films from domestic production: documentary, drama and the omnibus "Germany 09". For blogs ONLINE deduct balance: More introspection was rare.

 

Germany. Now. Not more than twelve minutes. Under this standard, the "13 short films on the situation of the nation" from "Germany 09" emerged from a bus that film, which on Friday the 13th, at the end of the Berlinale has been demonstrated. Personally, the films should be subjective and immediate.

It is neither this requirement nor the result, which many critics unsatisfied feeling that certain causes. At first, most pressing questions - where is the red thread, why was omitted topic X,-so why is not there, and why all 13 films and 42 - we know the answer to all things in life and the universe - there is conclusive answers . In the film itself and at the press conference after the screening: the restriction to 13 episodes, which together account for just under two and a half hours long, is due to the absorption capacity of the audience. A continuation would be nice-so is pregnant and in a different production process - and the subject of X, of course, the German unit, 20 years after the fall of the wall, is not a topic that pervades the films. That there is no thread must exist, is perhaps already the first result of this film, which is therefore a substitute for the German cinema in the year 2009.

Failure on its own claim

More problematic than the film itself is the programmatic title, which the film is believed, the D-question, 31 years after the co-production "Germany in Autumn" by Fassbinder, Kluge, Schlöndorff and Co..
"Germany 09" insist on their tradition, as it was without the German rise and fall as a connecting element to have. Our presence does not make the pressure to a joint, we find it says in the press conference. And yet, despite all the assurances that this would be, the expectation of what a film on the situation of the nation promises to be the same: a statement and an attitude. A We do.

The film can not and will not be representative, it is stressed, but arbitrary and subjective. It looks like a deliberate failure on its own right. "Everything is much more complex," as stated in Sylke Enders contribution "lopsided". The fact that it is complex, we know. Perhaps it would have 42 episodes but then must order this complexity into account.

Or, even better, one would have to answer before the 42 wondering, how exactly the question really is how it is when Douglas Adams Deep Thought recommended. A dozen votes to only one of the sub-themes of education, surveillance, sexual behavior, globalization and architecture in Germany would have been brave? and no less complete. But with its global aspirations, everything, but nothing definite show to want to like the movie with the title of a serious big playground.

Significantly, a U.S. production, co-financed with German funds, the film with the most German of all the topics: "The reader", the question of German guilt and atonement past deals.

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There is in the films of this vintage just an accumulation of war crimes issue. As different as "The reader", "Storm" and "The Father Game" (directed by Michael Glawogger based on a novel by Josef Haslinger) also address this issue, the question of an overarching moral authority, and dealing with guilt and responsibility of the individual moves through all round.

But whether they be punished by the notorious gaps in the network of escape, hide, or be at large in the world, dealing with war criminals is diametrically opposed Florian Gallenberger historical epic "John Rabe", whose main character in the middle of 1937 barbarically metzelnden Nanking in Japanese on 130 minutes across quite unbroken German hero may be: Not a spot on his white waistcoat, as far as the lens extends. This is new. So? it has to be well described as Biopic - on a good Germans between evil Japanese would have a few years ago do not exist. At least not as a German production.

The competition film "Storm" and
"The International", when all the differences in genre, style and ambition, a different approach to the topic of heroes. They no longer tell the classic story where the bad guy from the system ausschert, from Heroes, and then punished by the system to ensure that good order is restored.

Return of the lonely hero

Both in Tom Tykwer's thriller globalization as well as in Hans-Christian Schmid's judicial drama, the villain in the system long übergewuchert and the hero or heroine on their being combative travel to a point where it against a glass wall run and beat the bloody nose. You need the protection of the system, for which they actually fight, and leave to the other side to change when they target you? Justice? want to achieve. The last but not least 68ern propagated by the method of the system from the inside out to fight, has apparently run out of steam. Today's movie heroes are lonely again.

PERSONAL

Johanna Straub, 1970 born, is a freelance writer and filmmaker. During her studies, she organized regular "Tübinger Kleinphilmnacht short and, later, she led a distribution of documentaries in Leipzig. 2007 published her first novel, "The zebra has black stripes, so that the white looks better" (Verlagsbuchhandlung love child).

Also, the protagonist in
Maren Ades film "All Others" is running against a glass wall, not only in the literal sense but also in transferring. The difference with Tykwer and Schmid is that the young Chris its borders has been internalized and basically only fighting against themselves. Precisely because the problems of prosperity two children, whose relationship to each other ruthlessly dissected here is basically just to communication difficulties and misunderstandings are based, they are understandable. It is brave, especially to show what was not happening, and an impressive performance as Ade succeed for two hours to keep a voltage, which penetrates inside, not outside.

The most touching movie moments this year are already those who are so slow that it almost hurts. In which the stop time and a space is opened, the calls for his own thoughts. One of these moments is a close-up of war veterans Hossein Pashtuns, whose unhappy love story of Helga Reidemeister documentary "My heart sees the world in black - a charity in Kabul," says. Hossein steers with his walking aid to a sleeping cat. It comes only in centimeter steps forward, and the question of whether he umrennen the cat is away, or before, will always be pressing as he tries, with a step, which is a much larger than he actually can do about the cat to climb . This moment tells a lot more about these people than anything he himself could tell.

Play makes happy

The documentary genre has always turned to love in the stranger, but this year, the urge to leave the country, with its national sensitivities abroad blogsn, particularly striking. Often deals with Germans living abroad, such as
Jochen Hicks in "Good American" or "roller coaster" in which Peter Dörfler the incredible story of the former operator of the amusement parks in Plänterwald told, with his son accidentally in a Peruvian prison brings. Or in 'terminus of the longings, "a light entertaining film by Sung-Hyung Cho on a German village in South Korea and three German men, who with the help of their Korean women trying to find home.

A playground is "Germany 09" not only in the same omnibus film. Not a pressing issue, but many of the limitations on soft. Those where Germany stops - at least as a filming location - as well as the boundaries between good and evil and the various film genres.

On a playground, that's the beautiful, tollt you around, tried it, dares to approach exercises and tricks. Play makes happy and temporarily allows even a "we. How incredibly comforting that - in the Germany episode of Dani Levy - of this play from the German film little children may fly as in "Ricky" by François Ozon, of the fantastic films in the Berlinale Competition. From up there, the very good things to be seen. Even the state of the nation.