Germany in year zero
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Germany in year zero |
| Original title | Germania anno zero |
| Country of production | Italy |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1948 |
| length | 78 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Roberto Rossellini |
| script | Roberto Rossellini Carlo Lizzani Max Kolpé ( Max Colpet ) |
| production | Roberto Rossellini Alfredo Guarini |
| music | Renzo Rossellini |
| camera | Robert Juillard |
| cut | Anne-Marie Findeisen |
| occupation | |
| |
Germany in the Year Zero is the third film in a neorealism trilogy by Roberto Rossellini . The film shows the story of a twelve-year-old boy who had to look after his family's livelihood in post-war Germany in a world marked by hunger and the struggle for survival. The film was shot in the summer of 1947 in bombed Berlin .
The people
Edmund - He is always out and about to get money and food for himself and his family. In his environment he constantly experiences new rejection and resistance.
The father - He has a heart condition and is greatly weakened by hunger. Unable to contribute to the family's livelihood, he believes it would be best for all concerned if he died. He goes on to state that it was a mistake not to oppose National Socialism.
The sister - she is responsible for the household and takes care of the sick father with devotion. In the evenings she often meets with soldiers of the occupying powers. Several times people around her recommend that she get involved with "more" and answer that it is enough for her to find some diversion and bring home a few cigarettes (see cigarette currency ) every evening .
The Brother - He's a teenage war returnee. He is afraid of being punished by the Allied rulers for his service as a soldier and of being put in a prisoner of war camp. Since he does not register, he does not receive a meal card or a work permit. Therefore, four people from three meal cards live in the family.
Teacher Enning - He can no longer pursue his profession as a teacher because he is not acceptable as a teacher for the authorities in post-war Germany with his National Socialist views. He works as a supplier to a ring of pedophiles and makes money doing black market deals.
Mr. Rademacher - A house owner who has been assigned tenants by the Housing Office. He often complains about their high energy consumption. He solves his own energy problems by illegally diverting electricity for his own household. He is extremely suspicious of the roommates. Edmund, for example, is suspected of embezzling money.
action
The film is preceded by spoken explanations by the director. Rossellini explains that the film is all about an objective inventory of the situation in Berlin in 1947. Finally, he adds: “If, however, after witnessing this story by Edmund Köhler, someone believes that something has to be done, German children have to be taught to learn to love life again, then the person who has it would have to go to the trouble Made the film, more than worth it. "
Edmund has work digging graves in a cemetery. Since he shovels more slowly than the adult workforce, he is noticed. It turns out that he does not have a "job card" and he has to leave the cemetery. On the way home he sees a horse lying on the street that has apparently just perished. Several people immediately gathered around the animal. One cuts the animal carcass to get a piece of meat. When Edmund arrives at home, he learns that there are problems with the municipal utilities. The public utility representative who came to the house, however, can be persuaded to behave indulgently with small gifts. The house owner Rademacher gives Edmund a set of scales to be sold on the black market. Edmund ends up with a dealer who has fraudulent intentions. Most recently, instead of the 300 marks he had requested, he only got two tins and Rademacher accuses him of having embezzled the money. Rademacher complains that Edmund's father often moans at night: "The constant whining and whining from your father [...] Why doesn't he die - so that we can have our peace."
Edmund meets his former teacher Enning. He seeks physical contact with Edmund. But the boy does not recognize that Enning's interest is sexually tinted and remains in a naive and trusting attitude towards him. Enning hands Edmund a record with a speech by Hitler . He is supposed to take the record to the Reich Chancellery and sell it there to soldiers of the Allies. He succeeds too; he can keep ten marks of the proceeds. Then he meets his friends Jo and Christel. He must also be on guard against these. An alleged bar of soap that Jo sells him turns out to be empty packaging. A doctor is called to the sick father and diagnoses heart failure and a poor general condition. He's referring him to a hospital. There, after a long time, the father gets decent food again. When the father is expected back from the hospital, Edmund turns to Enning with a request for help and receives the following advice from him: “To keep him alive, you can't all starve to death. [...] Take a look at nature. The weak are destroyed so that the strong remain. You just have to have the courage to let the weak disappear. You have to be clear about that, my boy. It's about saving ourselves. ”The father is back in the family home. There is hardly anything for him to eat, just a few potatoes. Edmund prepares a tea for his father, in which he mixes some of the poison that he took when he visited his father in the hospital. The father drinks the poisoned tea and dies soon after. The roommates who gather at his deathbed conclude that he starved to death.
Edmund goes to Enning and explains to him: “I did it.” When the teacher realizes that Edmund murdered the father, he is worried that he could be charged as an instigator. He distances himself violently from Edmund and calls him a monster. Immediately afterwards, however, he declares: "We will find a way." Edmund, however, runs away, frightened. He walks through the streets of Berlin. When he tries to join a group of children playing soccer, he is turned away. For a long time he stayed in a ruin across from his family's house. He sees and hears the nurse calling for him, but does not answer. At this point the viewer has already learned in hints that he is toying with the idea of suicide. In the end he actually throws himself out of the house to his death.
interpretation
Rossellini paints a very gloomy picture of the conditions in post-war Germany. His attitude towards what was happening in what was then Germany becomes clear. He clearly believes that this country still has a long way to go if it is to get rid of the shadows of the past. In the case of the boy he is showing to the audience, at least, the moral confusion he is in goes so far that he is even ready to murder his own father.
reception
The film has rarely been shown in Germany. The attitude that the publicist Hans Habe showed towards the film in the Süddeutsche Zeitung in 1949 is often seen as exemplary: "In this film, Rossellini does not pick flowers from the grave of a nation, he vomits into the coffin."
Although the film was made with decisive technical and organizational help from DEFA , it was only shown for the first time in 1987 on the occasion of the 750th anniversary of Berlin by the archive film theater CAMERA in eastern Germany.
In 2003, the Federal Agency for Civic Education, in cooperation with numerous filmmakers, created a film canon for work in schools and included this film in their list.
History of origin
Rossellini developed the idea for the film in France. Since he took the title of the film from a book ("L'An zéro de l'Allemagne" by Edgar Morin ), one can assume that reading the book had a strong influence on him. It was the work of a French sociologist on the thinking of post-war Germans.
Rossellini dedicated the film to the memory of his son Romano, who died in 1946 of a ruptured appendix.
Awards
Locarno International Film Festival 1948:
- Grand prize for the best film for Roberto Rossellini
- Best Original Screenplay Award for Roberto Rossellini, Carlo Lizzani and Max Kolpé
See also
literature
- Alfred Holighaus (ed.): The film canon. 35 movies you need to know. Bertz, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-86505-160-X .
- Dominik Schrey: "Film what comes before and what comes after ..." - memory in Roberto Rossellini's Germania anno zero. In: Andreas Böhn , Christine Mielke (Ed.): The destroyed city. Media representations of urban spaces from Troy to Sim City. transcript-Verlag, Bielefeld 2007, ISBN 978-3-89942-614-4 , pp. 289-309.
- Ulrich Döge: Barbarians with humane features. Images of the German in Roberto Rossellini's films. ( International Film History. Vol. 18). WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, Trier 2009, ISBN 978-3-86821-172-6 .
Web links
- Germany, Year Zero in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Materials at filmportal.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Germany in the year zero In: F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 111-112.