Berlin Babylon

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Movie
Original title Berlin Babylon
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2001
length 92 minutes
Rod
Director Hubertus Siegert
script Hubertus Siegert
production Hubertus Siegert
music Collapsing new buildings
camera Ralf K. Dobrick,
Thomas Plenert
cut Peter Przygodda ,
Anne Snow

Berlin Babylon is a documentary film about the reconstruction of Berlin in the late 1990s. Director Hubertus Siegert shot for his cinema debut from 1996 to 2000.

content

At the end of the 20th century, the reunified Berlin was the scene of countless building projects that particularly affect the new center. Hubertus Siegert documents the before and after of these rapid urban upheavals, shows the construction sites from inside perspectives and lets politicians and architects reason with one another about the coming faces of the capital. His film does not remain neutral, but develops a critical, sometimes ironic attitude.

Berlin Babylon is initially a contemporary document. The early stages of architectural change in the 1990s still reveal a Berlin that was marked by World War II and the division of Germany . But these traces are lost more and more with the realization of the new building projects. The desire for a city that is finally closed again is the root of impressive, sometimes violent visions. In the minds of planners, Berlin is by no means always primarily a living space.

There are two main directions in a central debate. The representatives of the urban development model of “ critical reconstruction ” such as Josef Paul Kleihues and Hans Stimmann are based on the old European city with perimeter block development and a limited eaves height . Others like Rem Koolhaas and Günter Behnisch stand for contemporary, international architecture .

Instead of interviews and information, Berlin Babylon relies on the visual analysis of people, places and urban development processes. In suggestive collages of language and images, the film makes it clear that buildings and rooms are not only built and designed for their function. They are also symbols , carriers of memory, time and territory markings and thus materializations of power interests and social structures. The camera observes the political and entrepreneurial staging both by the new builders and all the trappings as well as by the construction processes themselves. Each building only receives its full meaning in the context of the city. Their often unconscious symbolic structures are the actual, mysterious protagonists in Siegert's film, since any purely informative elements such as narrators or explanatory texts are dispensed with.

Places and people

Berlin Babylon shows the (new) construction of places that are still central to the picture budget of the German capital today: Alexanderplatz , Pariser Platz and Potsdamer Platz , the main train station , the Jewish Museum and the Ku'damm-Eck . The beginnings of the debates about the demolition of the Palace of the Republic and the possible rebuilding of the Berlin City Palace are also documented.

The thrown together “general staff” of the building projects shown is almost exclusively male. Some of the hierarchs seem charismatic, others just high-handed - they are all ambitious and well aware of the historical greatness of their task. Including managers from megacorporations such as Daimler Chrysler and Sony , world-famous architects such as Helmut Jahn , Rem Koolhaas, Meinhard von Gerkan and Renzo Piano . Politicians like Helmut Kohl and Eberhard Diepgen . Berlin in the 90s wants to become a world stage again and is therefore also becoming more expensive, smoother and perhaps a little confused.

Quotes

“These advisors are all concerned. [...] I'm not here to be knocked out. "

- Helmut Jahn, architect of the Sony Center

About the development of costs for the construction of the Federal Chancellery :

“In the past, the construction cost on the Petersberg was exceeded three times. We're talking 400 million, which goes up to maybe 404 million. This is a joke. And still it doesn't work. Because the whole republic is just afraid. "

- Axel Schultes, architect of the Chancellery

About notions of monument protection to base the old building on Pariser Platz on the new academy:

“These may have been very good exhibition rooms at the time. […] [But] we have to be careful that we don't practice such fetishism. [...] The stuff is not so worth seeing for technical or other reasons, but only because it is old. "

- Günter Behnisch, architect of the Academy of Arts

About a possible preservation of the Palace of the Republic:

“This is simply third architectural quality, if at all. And the place is just too important to give in to such sentimentalities. "

Production background

Berlin Babylon was made as a cinema production without television participation. The cameramen Ralf K. Dobrick and Thomas Plenert shot on 35mm film . The very tight budget of 1.3 million marks for such a project was largely raised by the producer Hubertus Siegert and some private investors themselves. Only 15 percent came from the Filmboard Berlin-Brandenburg and the Filmbüro NRW . The German experimental band Einstürzende Neubauten composed the soundtrack .

evaluation

Berlin Babylon had its premiere in the Panorama of the Berlinale 2001. The film was one of the first works in the program of the Berlin film distributor Piffl Medien to be shown in cinemas on September 20, 2001 and had 27,000 viewers up to and including 2007.

criticism

"Speaking and arguing are alienated to an atmospheric noise, the film shows the arrogance of power and the feasible, while the city appears as a rugged natural landscape ... The inhospitable beauty of the images is terrific."

“Berlin Babylon is one of the few documentaries that are dedicated to the screen and not the screen. Hubertus Siegert plays on the whole range of cinematic possibilities and composes the atmospheric symphony of a capital city between megalomania and impotence. "

“If Curt Bois complained in Wim Wenders film classic about the disappearance of urban history, BERLIN BABYLON evokes a similar, melancholy feeling. Curt Bois strides through the Berlin of modern times, in search of the 'presence of history' (Hubertus Siegert): the disappeared, empty spaces, the blown up buildings and 'scattered' places. Where was the border strip? Where did the wall go ? When was that? Or was it all just a dream? I do not know anymore…"

- Filmzeitschrift.de

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