The silent classroom

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Movie
Original title The silent classroom
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2018
length 111 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 12
Rod
Director Lars Kraume
script Lars Kraume
production Miriam Düssel , Susanne Freyer , Isabel Hund ,
Thomas Kufus , Kalle Friz
music Christoph M. Kaiser ,
Julian Maas
camera Jens Harant
cut Barbara Gies
occupation

The silent classroom is a feature film by Lars Kraume based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Dietrich Garstka . The focus of the plot is a high school graduate class in the GDR who, on the occasion of the Hungarian uprising in 1956, decided to observe a minute's silence for the victims in class. The expression of solidarity results in reactions that neither the pupils, their parents nor the school management expected.

The world premiere took place on February 20, 2018 at the 68th Berlinale in the Berlinale Special section . The film was released in cinemas across Germany on March 1, 2018.

action

Stalinstadt , in 1956: Theo Lemke and Kurt Wächter, two high school graduates, return to Stalinstadt from a visit to the cinema in West Berlin . In the newsreel you saw pictures of the popular uprising in Hungary . Back in the GDR they became aware of the different reporting in the West and East German media. The newsreel and the RIAS , which they secretly hear from Edgar, the gay great-uncle of their classmate and friend Paul, report positively about the bourgeois-democratic movement, while the GDR media are pro-Soviet and condemn the uprising. After the RIAS reported on the death of the well-known football player Ferenc Puskás (as it later turns out, a false report), Kurt suggests that a symbolic minute's silence be held for the victims. With the exception of Erik, the stepson of the local pastor and son of a red front-line fighter who perished in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, the Abitur class stands behind it. The minute's silence falls in the lesson of the history teacher Mosel, who first assumes that the maneuver is directed against him. When Erik admits that it was a form of protest, the teacher reports the incident to Rector Schwarz.

The still young rector tries to downplay the incident, while at the same time defending the idea of ​​socialism. In the evening the whole class meets at Edgar's, where they learn from the RIAS that the Soviet troops have withdrawn at short notice and that Hungary is to receive a new government. At the same time, the symbolic minute's silence threatens to be investigated further. Edgar praises the young people as “free thinkers”, but also says that this is why they are now “enemies of the state”. Theo suggests that they excuse themselves by saying that the action should only commemorate the death of Ferenc Puskás. In a secret ballot, the majority - to Kurt's disappointment - opts for Theo's white lie. The group can later convince Erik, who is not present, of their plan.

The next day Lena, Erik and Theo are summoned to the rector one after the other, where they are questioned by the district school board member, Ms. Kessler. All three stick to the white lie despite the manipulative behavior of Ms. Kessler. When Theo accuses the teachers of “ Gestapo methods”, he receives a reprimand and the entire class has to go public to roll call. Kurt's manipulative father Hans, himself city council chairman, tries unsuccessfully to convince his son that the fascists are behind the Hungarian uprising . In consultation with the school principal, Theo's father Hermann takes his son out of school for a day to show him the hard work at the blast furnace . The group that comes to Edgar to hear RIAS is getting smaller and smaller. At the end only Kurt, Lena and Paul come. Kurt and Lena, who is actually with Theo, get closer and kiss, which Paul is secretly observing.

The situation came to a head when Minister of Education for the People Lange appeared in Stalinstadt. He condemns the action as a counter-revolutionary act and demands that the class name the ringleader . If this does not happen, he threatens the students not to allow them to take the Abitur in the entire GDR. Erik is pressured by Mrs. Kessler, whereupon he names Edgar as the source for hearing the RIAS. Edgar is then arrested by the People's Police , accompanied by Ms. Kessler. Paul takes revenge on Erik by knocking him down in the church. Kurt wants to confess himself as ringleader, but Theo talked him out of this. The parents of the pupils consider drafting a reply, while Theo's father visits the minister of education, but is not taken seriously as a former rebel . Lena separates from Theo because she is tired of his constant excuses. Ms. Kessler asks all students again individually, increasing the pressure on Erik. She threatens to publicize the truth about his father, who the Red Army hanged as a collaborator in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp after the liberation. Unaware of his father's true past, Erik reveals to Kurt and has a nervous breakdown during shooting class. He shoots the teacher, an old Nazi, with his rifle and injures him. Erik runs into the church and threatens his mother with the gun, but is overpowered by Theo, Kurt and Paul. Erik's mother reveals the truth about the weak father, while Erik confesses his betrayal of Kurt.

After Erik's rampage, Mrs. Kessler appears at Kurt and his father's. She holds out the prospect of shifting the entire blame on Erik, who is already facing a ten-year prison sentence. Kurt confronts his father with the photo of Erik's hanged father, on which he can also be seen. While his father yells at him, Kurt despairs of his mother's passivity. But she advises him to flee the GDR the following night. Kurt informs Theo about his planned escape across the sector border from East to West Berlin. However, on the first morning train he was arrested by the People's Police while checking the border with East Berlin. Kurt's father appears at the checkpoint in Königs Wusterhausen , lies to the police and helps his son escape. Since Kurt admitted with his “ escape from the republic ” that he was the ringleader, Ms. Kessler demands that every single student identify him as such. When Theo and then Paul refuse to do so and state that the majority voted for it, Ms. Kessler immediately expelled them from school. The remaining students, starting with Lena, now stand up one after the other and claim that it was their idea, whereupon Kessler referred them all to school. At Theo's advice, all but four of the pupils used the holiday traffic over the turn of the year 1956/57 to flee the republic to West Berlin. In the credits it is stated that the refugees passed their Abitur in the West.

Production and Background

The film is a cinema co-production by ZDF , Akzente Film- und Fernsehproduktion, Studiocanal Film and Zero One Film. It is based on real events. The events took place in Storkow .

Since Storkow has changed a lot in recent years and the school has been completely rebuilt and modernized, the decision was made to relocate the location and location to Eisenhüttenstadt , which was built in the 1950s as "Stalinstadt", and its residential complexes I-III are still completely preserved. Filming began there on February 21, 2017. However, numerous building functions have been modified; For example, the city's Friedrich-Wolf-Theater in the film became the interior of a West German cinema and the town hall became the GDR Ministry of Education. Hundreds of people from Eisenhüttenstadt also played as extras.

Some scenes were shot at the end of March 2017 in the large outdoor setting Neue Berliner Straße in the Babelsberg studio in Potsdam . Here scenes were created around Berlin's Kurfürstendamm, which was moved to 1956, with the Capitol light shows and house facades with shops as well as streets in the alleged Stalin city. 120 extras filled the built quarters in Babelsberg with life.

Reviews

The film service rated the film with four out of five possible stars and as a drama staged "with great sensitivity". Because the characters are “designed as complex characters”, “their moral dilemma is all the more believable” and “the questions of integrity, attitude and resistance are raised as timeless issues”.

At Spiegel Online , the author Matthias Dell was mostly disappointed with the film, condemned its story as a "contemporary history quark" and spoke of "staging standards seen a thousand times". What is boring about the film is that the young people who observe a minute's silence "go into the race from the beginning as the winners of history that they have been since the end of the GDR."

For the journalist Bert Rebhandl , The Silent Classroom in the FAZ is “an almost exemplary film”, but it lacks one crucial little thing, namely “an indication of how the GDR might actually have felt back then. To do this, you would still have to go to contemporary films. "

Stefan Stosch rated the film as devoid of pathos in the newspaper Dresdner Latest Nachrichten . One achievement of the film is to "embed the different biographies of so many participants in the history". The boundary between fiction and truth is not clear enough, because some things, such as the love triangle between Theo, Kurt and Lena, seem “too rounded”.

Dietrich Garstka , author of the book, said about the film: “Everything is accurate”.

Awards

Book template

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for The Silent Classroom . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF; test number: 175335 / K). Template: FSK / maintenance / type not set and Par. 1 longer than 4 characters
  2. ↑ Age designation for The Silent Classroom . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ↑ Start of shooting for the ZDF cinema co-production “Das schweigende Klassenzimmer” , press portal / ZDF on February 24, 2017, accessed on July 30, 2017.
  4. ↑ Sebastian Fischer: This is how a school class fled the GDR . Süddeutsche Zeitung of February 4, 2017.
  5. ↑ True story: The silent classroom , berliner-kurier.de of March 27, 2017, accessed on November 21, 2017.
  6. ↑ Film brings young GDR to life , maz-online.de from March 31, 2017, accessed on July 30, 2017.
  7. ↑ Film shoot in Babelsberg: Uprising with silence and nuts , pnn.de from March 31, 2017, accessed on December 20, 2017.
  8. ^ Studio Babelsberg - Metropolitan Backlot: References, The Silent Classroom , metropolitanbacklot.com, accessed December 20, 2017.
  9. ^ The silent classroom , in: film-dienst , accessed on March 18, 2018
  10. ↑ Matthias Dell: A dead land, a stale film , in: Spiegel online from Feb. 28, 2018, accessed on March 18, 2018
  11. ^ Bert Rebhandl : Public Enmity as School Failure , in: FAZ from March 1, 2018, accessed on March 18, 2018
  12. ↑ a b Stefan Stosch: On Resistance: "The Silent Classroom" , in: Dresdner Latest News from Feb. 28, 2018, accessed on March 18, 2018
  13. ^ Peace Prize of German Films - Die Brücke will be awarded for the 17th time on July 5th in Munich . Article dated June 6, 2018, accessed June 6, 2018.