I am the rabbit
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | I am the rabbit |
 | |
| Country of production | GDR |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1965 / 1990 |
| length | 118 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Kurt Maetzig |
| script | Kurt Maetzig, Manfred Bieler |
| production | DEFA Potsdam-Babelsberg |
| music |
Gerhard Rosenfeld , Reiner Bredemeyer |
| camera | Erich Gusko |
| cut | Helga Krause |
| occupation | |
| |
I am the rabbit is a 1964/65 from DEFA -Studio for feature films, group "Roter Kreis", filmed literary adaptation by director Kurt Maetzig , based on the novel Maria Morzeck or The rabbit I am by Manfred Bieler . The film was banned in the GDR until 1990 because it dealt critically with socialism - especially with the criminal justice system.
action
Maria and Dieter Morzeck grew up without parents with their aunt Hete in East Berlin after the war. Shortly before the construction of the wall, Dieter, in his early twenties, was sentenced to three years imprisonment for an unspecified act of “ agitation that was dangerous to the state ”. The judge Paul Deister even goes beyond the request of the public prosecutor's office. Maria visits her brother in prison and is declared politically unreliable because of the relatives. As a result, after graduating from high school , she is denied the dreamed of studying Slavic studies, she only gets a job as a waitress.
Some time later, Dieter asks his sister to submit a pardon for him. In the city court of Greater Berlin , she meets a man again who has already complimented her in a theater foyer and is now continuing. Only when he introduces himself by name does she recognize her brother's judge. She runs away, scared, but he follows her and continues his wooing. Over the course of many walks through Berlin, she gets to know him better and finally falls in love with the much older man, although she suspects that he is married. He goes on courting them, and over New Year's Eve they go to his dacha and sleep together.
Maria initially intended to use the judge's clear interest in her in favor of her brother, but rejects this after she falls in love with him. After a while, he too learns of the problematic constellation, complains about the difficult situation in which he was put, but continues the relationship.
In the spring, Maria is on sick leave for a long time because of spondylosis . To relax, she moves to Paul's dacha over the summer, which is in a village near the coast. There she has a weekend relationship with Paul that is initially exuberant and happy. During the week she participates in the life of the village, works as a waiter in the inn and makes some friends.
An incident stirs up village life: a drowned man is searched for and rescued. At a village festival in a drunken state, the fisherman Grambow loudly expresses his satisfaction that a non-commissioned officer of the People's Navy was caught. Another villager is outraged and beats him up. Paul Deister intervenes and separates the arguing. Afterwards the mayor comes to Paul with the aim of keeping the insult to the state organ by Grambov upstairs and instead settling it in the village. He condemns the act, but also solicits understanding for people. The judge, who until then had been close to the people, reacts indignantly and demands punishment with all severity. Maria listens to this and is certain that Grambov, like her brother, will end up in prison for years.
The mayor, meanwhile, does not give up and calls a court hearing in the village. In a central scene of the film, the case is negotiated in the village inn in front of the entire village community. While a noticeably large number of chairs are set up before the village hearing begins, an acoustic flashback runs parallel to the tone of the Berlin court hearing about Dieter Morzeck, at which the public was locked out first. The village community expressed understanding for the culprit, whose fishing grounds had suffered as a result of a naval maneuver, but also for the comrades of the deceased dead man. Maria tries to influence the trial by making an obvious false testimony in favor of Grambov, which, however, is not believed. She runs away in despair, only to find out later, to her surprise, that the fisherman has only been sentenced to three months probation, but is supposed to do concrete penance with an additional 100 hours of community service in the village.
The model negotiation in the human village community leads Maria to a new way of thinking about Dieter's trial in Berlin. She confronts Paul in several discussions. He admits that he had deliberately imposed a higher sentence in order to “be better than the prosecutor” and to do well in the judiciary. Maria turns away from Paul. Shortly afterwards, he makes a demonstrative suicide attempt. In a final attempt not to lose Maria's affection, he wants to submit a pardon for Dieter himself, calling his earlier judgment a mistake and applying for his release from the judicial function. Maria sees this as just another move to profile herself, this time in the other direction, and refuses to cooperate.
At the end of the film, Dieter is released from prison and initially returns happily to his aunt and sister. When he learns of Maria's relationship with his judge, he beats her up. Maria realizes that she must uncompromisingly stand up for her own decisions. She applies again for her desired course and is accepted. She looks for her own apartment and moves her property in a handcart across the streets of Berlin towards an independent future.
title
In the film, the leading actress compares herself twice to a rabbit. The first time she is confronted by her lover's wife:
- We stand there like the snake and the rabbit. I am the rabbit.
The second time towards the end of the film after she was beaten up by her brother:
- I get up again. I will not let the fur pulled over my ears. I'm not the rabbit anymore. I'm an old hand.
background
Emergence
After the Berlin Wall was erected in the summer of 1961 , the VI. SED party congresses in January 1963 led to a brief phase of liberalization , the development of a critical dispute was initially encouraged by the party. The general optimism in film production proves that the new generation felt ready to take on their role in society. Numerous works were created, including a .: Just don't think I'm crying , Berlin around the corner , Karla , or trace of the stones .
Prohibition
The new first man in the Soviet Union Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev , party leader of the CPSU since 1964 , followed a much more conservative course than his predecessor Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev . This change of course by the Soviet Union also had an impact on the GDR and its cultural policy . In the aftermath of the XI. Plenum of the Central Committee of the SED In 1965 twelve DEFA films were banned - this corresponds to almost the entire annual production. In this respect it can be stated that the XI. Plenary session of the SED Central Committee marked the end of the new GDR film. As a result, all banned films from this era were referred to as basement films or rabbit films .
Contemporary commentary
Kurt Maetzig, the director of the film, describes the circumstances at the time as follows:
“The ban on film was not related to the film itself, but to the change in the general climate. [...] That was a time when a climate had formed that screamed for change. [...] Then came the unspeakable Brezhnev, and he made a secret, unofficial visit to the government of the GDR - you don't know what was being discussed, but I can well imagine that he said: 'Backwards, backwards, that does not work like this. All of these tendencies that are spreading here from economy to art, all that back. '"
Elsewhere he says:
“I was indescribably disappointed that I couldn't get away with this film, the premiere of which had already been prepared, which had succeeded and which stood for something that was so close to my heart, namely the democratization of our whole life, a step towards one democratic socialism. That was the core content. And to experience that as impossible was the greatest disappointment of all for me. […] It affects all my films after the 11th plenum, after the rabbit. After that I somehow flapped my wings and managed this and that, but that wasn't sensible. [...] I guess someone broke my back and then I knew that I had to stop. "
Brigitte Reimann wrote on December 12, 1965:
“Something that particularly struck me: 'The Rabbit' has been withdrawn from the producers, voluntarily, of course, and out of understanding. Poor Maetzig. […] Höpcke and Knietzsch from ND [ Neues Deutschland ], who were so enthusiastic about the 'rabbit' at the time, will of course have forgotten their judgment. "
Kurt Maetzig tried to justify himself publicly in the New Germany of January 5, 1966: The artist is not outside the fight, From the discussion contribution made by comrade Kurt Maetzig to departmental party organization 1 of the DEFA studio for feature films :
“So I have to check carefully what actually led to the devastating criticism of this film at the 11th plenum. [I meant] we had to make the art of socialist realism more mass-effective, and asked myself: What is missing in our films to achieve this goal? [...] It was not very far-off to come up with the answer that the critical aspect of our films is too minor. […] But precisely in the critical aspect, which seemed to me to be the philosopher's stone to get closer to the audience, was a main point of political error. [...] today his partisanship is expressed especially in his irreconcilability towards all shortcomings, weaknesses and mistakes that hinder the building of socialism. On closer inspection, this view of placing flaws and weaknesses in the foreground and orienting the partiality of the artist to this point turns out to be nonsense. The artist's partiality is evident in the strength, passion and mastery with which he takes part in the class struggle with his art. The turning away from this principle in film art leads to an unauthorized yielding of long-held socialist positions. That is why the 'rabbit' has become a noxious film. [...] "
Reviews
“If that had been said and shown so publicly at the time, then the feudalist system would not have been able to develop in this way, because the questions of law and justice, the type of agitator and 'turning neck', the mixture of cautiousness and hidden rebellion in the population : That is unmistakably, radically and accurately addressed and pronounced. "
“Dealing with politics and society in the GDR beyond the temporal context. The film convinces with excellent actors and precise dialogues, with apt humor and clear social criticism. "
literature
- Günter Adge (Ed.): Kahlschlag. The 11th plenum of the Central Committee of the SED. Studies and documents . 2nd expanded edition. Structure paperback, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-7466-8045-X .
- Christiane Mückenberger (Ed.): Predicate: Particularly harmful. Film texts . Henschel Verlag, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-362-00478-4 .
- Ingrid Poss, Peter Warnecke (Ed.): Trace of Films. Contemporary witnesses about DEFA . Links, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-86153-401-0 , ( DEFA Foundation series ).
- New Germany , January 6, 1966.
- Frankfurter Rundschau 1990.
Web links
- The Rabbit Is Me in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- I'm the rabbit at filmportal.de
- hu-berlin.de
- bpb.de (PDF; 63 kB)
- I'm the rabbit at the DEFA foundation
Individual evidence
- ↑ Brigitte Reimann: “Diary entry v. December 12, 1965 ". In: BR, Everything tastes like goodbye. Diaries 1964–1970 , Berlin 1998, p. 169.
- ↑ I am the rabbit. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed April 3, 2017 .