The Escape (1977)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The escape |
| Country of production | GDR |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1977 |
| length | 94 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 6 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Roland Graef |
| script | Roland Gräf Hannes Hüttner (scenario) |
| production | DEFA , KAG "Red Circle" |
| music |
Günther Fischer , based on motifs by Mussorgsky |
| camera | Claus Neumann |
| cut | Monika Schindler |
| occupation | |
| |
Die Flucht is a German DEFA film directed by Roland Gräf in 1977.
action
Senior Physician Dr. Schmith is not politically interested, only in the FDGB and not active there, but is absorbed in his work with premature babies. He would like to be scientifically involved in research to reduce the mortality of premature babies, but the funds for a machine to do this are not approved. His boss accuses him that he only deals with a marginal phenomenon of everyday medical life. Frustrated, Schmith decides to flee to the west. Here he was offered his own post and freedom of action at the children's clinic in Inntal. He accepts the job and makes final preparations with his escape helpers. They want to contact him within the next four weeks and tell him the date of his escape.
There are changes in the clinic. With the young Katharina, a new colleague comes to Schmith's ward. He falls in love with her. Colleague Wendt is arrested while trying to escape across the Austro-Hungarian border and is now considered a traitor in the college. And finally, thanks to the commitment of colleagues and similar research in Czechoslovakia , Schmith's project is also approved - on a larger scale than expected. Schmith requires a day to think about it, since he has now found out his date of escape. He should be picked up on October 30th. Two days later he would be allowed to go to a congress in Cologne as a project manager anyway . Schmith lets the agreed escape date pass and accepts the position as project manager. A little later in Cologne he met the organizer of his escape. He explains to him that he was absent, saying that the Congress allowed him to cross the border without risk and that he had therefore abandoned the escape workers. He goes to Inntal and looks at the clinic. In the end, however, he returned to the GDR.
Again and again he is now visited by the rounder, who urges him to fulfill his contract with the escape helpers. Although Schmith wants to stay, he sees no way out, especially since joining the police would mean the end of his scientific career. He only confides in his former girlfriend and current colleague Gudrun, but sees no choice but to go to the West as originally planned. Since he stated before the round that he was tied to the GDR because of his girlfriend, he was asked to flee with her.
Shortly before the agreed time, Schmith pretends to be a trip to a forest hut with Katharina. Here they spend the night and Schmith wakes the surprised Katharina at night. He drives her to the place agreed with the escape helpers, where he reveals to Katharina that he wants to flee with her to the west. Katharina is amazed and horrified. When Schmith takes the suitcases out of the car, she flees. The escape helpers fear that Katharina would betray the escape and so they refuse to bring Schmith alone to the West. When he does not want to get out of the vehicle, an escape agent knocks him down with a flashlight and pushes him out of the car. The escape helpers disappear. Schmith collapses not far from his car and dies a short time later.
production
The film Die Flucht had its world premiere on October 6, 1977 at the opening of a GDR film week in the Mir cinema in Moscow and its GDR premiere on October 13, 1977 in the International Cinema in Berlin . It was the first DEFA film to deal with the subject of fleeing the GDR and to address it openly at all.
The film was Armin Mueller-Stahl's last DEFA film before he left for the Federal Republic of Germany almost two years later. He had already applied for an exit visa while filming Die Flucht .
Günther Fischer's music is based on Mussorgski's Pictures at an Exhibition - Il vecchio castello .
criticism
The critics called the first part of the film successful: "The film began in a milieu-specific and psychologically coherent manner, and does not cheat around the cause of the intention of some GDR citizens to leave their state," says the Frankfurter Rundschau . Later, however, the film flattens into an "unbelievable crime story". Other critics wrote that after the first third the film wears off dramatically and psychologically.
For the lexicon of international films , Die Flucht was "a technically cleanly staged film that discusses problems in the GDR comparatively openly, whereby it only partially succeeds in providing psychological motivation."
In retrospect, the film is considered a “child of the Cold War”. Other critics wrote: "The subject is a taboo, the execution weak, because it deprives the 'negative' hero of the realistic figure right of real reasons and motives."
Awards
On the XXI. International Film Festival Karlovy Vary awarded The Escape 1978 the grand prize. Roland Gräf and Hannes Hüttner received the Heinrich Greif Prize 1st class in 1978 for the film .
In a critics' survey by the Theory and Criticism section of the Association of Film and Television Makers of the GDR, Die Flucht 1978 was voted DEFA's best contemporary film in 1977.
literature
- Frank-Burkhard Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films. The complete documentation of all DEFA feature films from 1946 to 1993. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 174–175.
Web links
- The flight in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The escape at filmportal.de
- The escape at the DEFA Foundation
Individual evidence
- ^ Films of the GDR shown in Moscow and in Naples . In: Neues Deutschland , 8./9. October 1977, p. 15.
- ↑ a b Frank-Burkhard Habel : The large lexicon of DEFA feature films. The complete documentation of all DEFA feature films from 1946 to 1993. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , p. 175.
- ↑ Heinz Kersten in: Frankfurter Rundschau , November 25, 1977.
- ^ Günter Agde: Tragic consequence of a problematic character . In: Filmspiegel , No. 23, 1977, p. 12.
- ↑ The escape. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed August 6, 2018 .
- ^ Ralf Schenk (Red.), Filmmuseum Potsdam (Hrsg.): The second life of the film city Babelsberg. DEFA feature films 1946–1992 . Henschel, Berlin 1994, p. 256.
- ↑ See defa.de