The Escape (2007)

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Movie
Original title The escape
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2007
length 180 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Kai Wessel
script Gabriela Sperl
production Katrin Goetter ,
Joachim Kosack
music Enjott Schneider
camera Holly Fink
cut Carsten Eder ,
Tina Freitag ,
Heidi Handorf
occupation

Die Flucht is a two-part German television film from 2007. Along with Tadellöser & Wolff , Dresden and Die Luftbrücke it is one of a series of multi-part television programs that tell of dramatic days in Germany's history from the perspective of the German population. The central theme is the flight from East Prussia , on which around 300,000 Germans were killed from January 1945 through acts of war, war crimes, freezing cold or drowning.

action

Summer 1944. Magdalena Countess von Mahlenberg travels from Berlin to her home in East Prussia to reconcile with her fatally ill father.

Eight years earlier, Lena had left East Prussia to raise her illegitimate child Viktoria, instead of marrying Heinrich Graf von Gernstorff, son of the family friend Rüdiger Graf von Gernstorff and Sophie Countess von Gernstorff. Lena's decision against marrying Heinrich, to whom she had long been promised, but whom she had never loved, led to a break with her father, Count Berthold von Mahlenberg.

When she returns, her father is initially harsh and dismissive. In order to prove to him that she is a good daughter, Lena lets herself again into the customs of the East Prussian nobility. In the chaos of war she takes responsibility for the Mahlenberg estate. She brings her daughter, who is in the Kinderlandverschickung in Bavaria, to her home and makes up her mind to decide to marry Heinrich after all. The suicide of Heinrich's brother Ferdinand initially prevents the wedding.

While the treks of refugees from Memelland and Lithuania increase and the front draws ever closer, Lena tries to suppress the impending doom. But a man on her farm keeps drawing her attention to the impending catastrophe: François Beauvais, a French prisoner of war. An impossible emotional connection develops between him and Lena, which she cannot live with.

Lena stands more and more between her traditional upbringing and a new era.

In January 1945, she and her daughter and the relatives of their estate had to flee from the approaching front. Her father, Count von Mahlenberg, inevitably sees the end of the old world approaching, but is unable to break away from the old values. Although he manages to reconcile with his daughter, he remains behind at the family seat and gives Lena the responsibility for the uncertain future of the Mahlenberg trek and the survival of her wards. When units of the Red Army move into Gut Mahlenberg, he commits suicide.

Lena leads the people entrusted to her through a merciless winter from East Prussia to Bavaria. On this long and arduous journey, Lena's relationship with François develops into a life-threatening entanglement that ultimately forces Lena to give up this love.

In the spring of 1945 Lena arrived in Bavaria. The old social order has finally dissolved. There is room for new paths. Lena now irrevocably decides against Heinrich. The way into the new era leads to the fact that the previously immovable conventions are fading: privileges, class arrogance and traditional aristocratic structures of rule are left behind. Due to the forced displacement and the flight to the West, the people, originally far removed from one another in terms of socialization and origin, have become more equal: They are all faced with nothing, the ruins of their livelihoods, and each one has to start anew.

Awards

Bothmer Castle in Klütz

Background information

The two-part series produced by ARD was shot between February and June 2006 in Lithuania .

The Franco-German broadcaster Arte , which acts as a co-producer, broadcast Die Flucht as a three-hour one-piece program on March 2, 2007. On Arte, the film set a rating record for the culture channel with 2.4 million viewers. The film was broadcast on March 4th and 5th, 2007 on Erste and ORF .

Bothmer Castle (Mahlenberg family) in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Friedrichsfelde Castle (Gernstorff family) in Berlin were used as a backdrop for the domestic goods .

Tatjana Gräfin Dönhoff (* 1959), grandniece of Marion Gräfin Dönhoff , is the author of the book about the film.

criticism

The criticism reacted differently to the audience success.

The news magazine Der Spiegel writes:

“The Reich is collapsing nobly: As a country nobleman, Maria Furtwängler tries to lead her wards out of East Prussia at the end of the war in the two-part displaced melodrama“ Die Flucht ”- but the film remains stuck in solid to dangerous stereotypes. German film and the Third Reich - so far, nothing good has come of it. You look for your heroes and heroines in order to shed at least some light on the blackest of all German historical chapters. Most TV writers believe that the average person simply cannot get anything dramaturgically. The ARD two-parter now pays homage to the noble, pre-democratic attitude of the East Prussian landed nobility: You demand obedience from your people, but you also look after them heroically. "

The lexicon of international film judges:

“Elaborately produced historical television drama that packs the historical facts into a melodramatic plot. The impressive film takes on a topic that has long been a taboo subject in Germany, since flight and expulsion are fraught with guilt, shame and shame. The emotional impact is undeniable, the physical performance of the shooting is admirable. He has the potential to contribute to the reconciliation of Poles and Germans. "

swell

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bambi Prize Winner. In: Bambi.de. Retrieved on November 23, 2018 (please enter "2007" under I'm looking for and start the search).
  2. ↑ arte quota record with Die Flucht , heise.de, May 29, 2012
  3. ^ Journal film-dienst and Catholic Film Commission for Germany (eds.), Horst Peter Koll and Hans Messias (ed.): Lexikon des Internationale Films - Filmjahr 2007 . Schüren Verlag, Marburg 2008. ISBN 978-3-89472-624-9