German lesson (2019)

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Movie
Original title German lesson
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2019
length 125 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 12
Rod
Director Christian Schwochow
script Heide Schwochow
production Ulf Israel
music Lorenz Dangel
camera Frank Lamm
cut Jens Klüber
occupation

Deutschstunde is a film drama by Christian Schwochow from 2019 and the remake of the novel Deutschstunde by Siegfried Lenz . The premiere was on September 28, 2019 at the Hamburg Film Festival . The film opened in Germany on October 3, 2019.

action

In the 1950s, Siggi Jepsen sits in youth arrest on an Elbe island and is supposed to write an essay on "The joys of duty" in the German lesson. But because he doesn't succeed, he has to do the task the next day in a cell.

There he writes down his memories of his father Jens Jepsen, who as a village policeman in northern Germany had always relentlessly fulfilled his duty. During the time of National Socialism , the father had the task of informing his childhood friend, Max Ludwig Nansen, who was ostracized by the Nazis as a " degenerate artist ", of a painting ban imposed by the regime and to monitor compliance.

Nansen does not adhere to the ban, continues to paint and relies on the help of the boy, who is his godson and maintains a close friendship with him. But Jepsen orders his son to spy on the painter. Siggi is torn between the wish to please his father and the premonition that the painter is doing great injustice.

The question of whether he should adapt or resist the obvious injustice and thus also his own father becomes essential for Siggi. When his father confiscated Nansen's pictures, Siggi hides the pictures in an empty house. He also arranges a temporary hiding place at Nansen for his older brother Klaas, who has deserted from the Wehrmacht . When Klaas is seriously injured in an air raid, he is brought to his parents' house. But his father turns him over to the authorities, even though his son is threatened with execution. Ditte Nansen, who is heavily involved in the pursuit of her husband, dies of pneumonia. When rumors arise that the British Army is near, Jepsen wants to win the men present for the “ Volkssturm ”, but he does not succeed because of Nansen's counter-speech. When the British army arrives, Jepsen is arrested by the British.

After Jepsen has returned from captivity, he resumes the police force and does not want to see that the painting ban against Nansen has been lifted. He burns all the artist's pictures that he can find. Shortly after he found the hidden pictures in the abandoned house, it burned down - apparently the police officer started the fire. Siggi, now seized by a pathological sense of duty himself, steals Nansen's pictures in order to save them from his father. This clouded Siggi's previously close relationship with Nansen and Siggi was sent to juvenile prison because of the art theft. There he finishes his essay after a long time and is dismissed.

Compared to the novel

When the long novel was adapted for the feature film, some events were condensed and coincide directly; like Ditte's funeral and the end of the war, which in the novel are half a year apart. In the novel, Nansen joins the Volkssturm for a few hours before he leaves it and there is a confrontation with Jepsen. In the book, Siggi's father is only imprisoned for three months after the end of the war, whereas in the film, several years seem to have passed. At Lenz, Siggi's hiding place is an old mill; in the film it is an abandoned house, the residents of which evidently fled, arrested or deported in connection with National Socialism. That a picture supposedly painted by Nansen actually comes from Siggi and therefore the painter is released from prison does not appear in this form in the novel.

Characters have also been changed: in the novel Gudrun Jepsen is a supporter of National Socialism and encourages her husband in his attitude, in the film, on the other hand, she is mainly portrayed as a woman who is oppressed by her husband and who secretly does not seem to share all of his opinions. The fate of Klaas Jepsen remains uncertain in the film, while the novel shows how he survived the war and becomes a photographer. Schwochow justifies the fact that secondary characters in the novel either appear in abbreviated form or do not appear at all by stating that he had to lose them "in order to really get to the core."

background

Siegfried Lenz's German Lesson , one of the most successful novels in German post-war literature, was filmed in two parts for television in 1971 under the same title . After director Christian Schwochow read the novel in the 2000s, he was fascinated by the closeness he felt to this story. Instead of staging swastikas and marches, as in so many films about National Socialism, he wanted to portray a remote place where the war does not actually take place, and yet personal relationships are broken by the “poison of fascism”.

The screenwriter Hilde Schwochow, mother of the director, read the German lesson on the recommendation of her son. Above all, she wanted to work out the archaic core story of the novel: "A boy, a child is being ground up between two men who have different principles and I found that incredibly interesting and incredibly strong."

The director wanted to tell a story "that can also be understood as today's". Therefore, the characters shouldn't be just victims or just perpetrators; Even if Lenz's clear division for 1968 is still understandable, it is no longer true for the Schwochows. They put the figure of Siggi on with the pain and trauma that he carried within himself, like a “forerunner of the later RAF ”. So he became a "more modern figure".

In addition to locations in northern Germany, the film was also shot in Denmark, as no filming permission was granted in Germany for any of the Wadden Sea or most of the dunes.

reception

The German Film and Media Assessment (FBW) gave the film the rating of particularly valuable . The statement of the jury stated that Schwochow succeeded "in creating an atmospherically dense and powerful work that clearly elaborates the contradiction between the fulfillment of duty and individual responsibility and appeals to today's viewers to take a stand."

criticism

Oliver Armknecht answered the question of whether it was necessary to film Lenz's famous novel again fifty years after its publication, with a clear yes. Because, unlike other historical works, Schwochow “does not strike with the club”. The strong decoupling of the outside world, which is at war, creates a dream-like, slightly surreal atmosphere. The film may be more difficult to access, but it gains “a much more universal note”. This classic points "in a new guise" beyond National Socialism and gives today's audience a lot to think about; in this version, however, the uncomfortable feeling arises that “history could repeat itself at any time” and that “we may not have learned as much as we would like.”

Hannah Pilarczyk, on the other hand, criticizes Der Spiegel for the fact that the film, like so many German films, “has nothing to say about the past or the present”. He encapsulates himself "in a vacuum that makes any connection to relevant contemporary historical debates impossible". Lenz's parable is "told so contextlessly down to a misunderstood fulfillment of duties" that it says something about the present of German films, which is driven by dwindling importance and declining audience numbers.

In epd Film, Frank Schnelle emphasizes the "absolute fidelity" of this film adaptation. Schwochow claims "the right to draw a clear line between fiction and reality, to be able to concentrate entirely on the reduced, archaic conflict". This refers to the "ambivalences and contradictions [...] of the original", especially with regard to the figure of the painter, who is based on the controversial Emil Nolde .

Awards

  • Best Cinematography / Image Creation (Frank Lamm)
  • Best Score ( Lorenz Dangel )

References

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for German lesson . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF). Template: FSK / maintenance / type not set and Par. 1 longer than 4 characters
  2. ↑ Age rating for German lessons . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ↑ Sabine Oelmann: Schwochow finds the right attitude. In: n-tv . October 7, 2019, accessed December 3, 2019 .
  4. ↑ a b c Director Schwochow on "Deutschstunde" film adaptation - "The language of Lenz is so visually powerful". Deutschlandfunk Kultur , September 28, 2019, accessed on December 3, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Heide Schwochow on "Deutschstunde" - "It is important that you get the core of the book". Deutschlandfunk Kultur , October 2, 2019, accessed on December 3, 2019 .
  6. ↑ dpa: Hard to find locations in the north for "German Lessons". In: Berliner Morgenpost . September 26, 2019, accessed December 3, 2019 .
  7. ^ German lesson : Jury statement. German Film and Media Rating (FBW) , 2019, accessed on 23 September 2019 .
  8. ↑ Oliver Armknecht: German lesson. Filmrezensions.de, September 20, 2019, accessed on September 23, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Hannah Pilarczyk: Insignificant Importance. Der Spiegel , October 2, 2019, accessed on October 3, 2019 .
  10. ^ Frank Schnelle: Critique of the German lesson. epd Film , September 23, 2019, accessed on October 3, 2019 .
  11. ↑ Nominations 2020 . In: deutscher-filmpreis.de (accessed on March 11, 2020).