Christine (1963/1974)

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Movie
Original title Christine
Country of production GDR
original language German
Publishing year 1963/1974
length 106 minutes
Rod
Director Slatan Dudow
script Slatan Dudow
production DEFA
music Wilhelm Neef
camera Helmut Bergmann
cut Lena Neumann
occupation

Christine is a German DEFA film by Slatan Dudow from 1963, which could not be completed due to the death of the director during the shooting.

action

This women's drama from the time after World War II depicts the life of a young farm worker who is exploited by several men, gives birth to three illegitimate children and neglects her professional training. She lives in a small room in a manor house with two other young women.

She met the first man at the fair, Georgi, the employee of the aerial swing. He still has several girlfriends during the current guest performance in the small town and Christine has a child from him. She calls it Atze and leaves it in the home as she is unable to look after the child. Due to the pregnancy, she was no longer able to continue the qualification she had already started.

The second man is an economic functionary who is supposed to contribute to increasing the results of the national estate. Christine falls in love with him, but she doesn't know that Eugen is married and has two children. She has a second child from him, again a boy, and she also has him placed in the home.

Now there are two men trying to get Christine. Willibald, a devout Catholic, leaves her after learning that she is pregnant. He only has his further development as a pastor in mind and a child is only a hindrance. The bustling Hubi, with whom she cannot find any real contact at first, promises her the wedding. Christine is happy and prepares everything. One day before the wedding, Hubi has her savings book given in order to be able to pay the costs. With this money, he then fled the GDR and before Christine to West Berlin. Willibald's child is also a boy and stays in the home. Christine is now interrupting her training for the third time.

Then there is Nico, the tractor driver. He's loved Christine for a long time. But she doesn't want to know anything about him, because he once attacked her while bathing while drunk. For the sake of honesty, as he likes to say, Nico married a woman who will have a child by him. She knows about his "honesty" but is very angry when he says the name Christine when asked about the possible name of a possibly expected girl.

The next attempt for qualification can start and Christine is delegated to the technical school. In order to relieve her of the problems a bit, she gets her teacher Heinz as a godparent. He takes care of her very touchingly and so a love relationship develops. Since the young student cannot find peace and quiet to study in her shared room in the manor house, Heinz gets her a 2½-room apartment. Everything looks like this time everything will turn out fine. Unfortunately, it is now Heinz's turn to begin his long-awaited further training for 12 months. Christine has another child, this time from Heinz and again a boy. Since she has to see during a visit to the children's home that her boys have nothing to do with their mother, she decides to take all four children home with her.

production

Christine was shot in black and white and could no longer be ended due to the death of director Slatan Dudows in a car accident. The leading actress Annette Woska was seriously injured in this accident, was in a coma for many weeks and was therefore unable to film for a long time. She married the director Dieter Roth and later played as Annette Roth in several DEFA films. On October 15, 1974, the film had its premiere in the Berlin studio cinema Camera, as a rough cut version with dubbed audio. Therefore, in the first few minutes of the film, there is no sound, and it keeps dropping out over the entire length.

criticism

In the Süddeutsche Zeitung , Wilhelm Roth found that it was difficult to gauge what the GDR film lost because Dudow was unable to complete his Christine at the time and put it up for discussion.

In the GDR weekly newspaper Sonntag you could read that what Dudow was doing was bold to shape a Madonna out of a woman who would have been called antisocial elsewhere and to take her side.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wilhelm Roth in the Süddeutsche Zeitung , October 20, 1974.
  2. movie review from JV in Sunday , no. 43/1974