The last bridge

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Movie
German title The last bridge
Original title The last bridge / Poslednji most
The last bridge Logo 001.svg
Country of production Austria
Yugoslavia
original language German
Publishing year 1954
length 104 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Helmut Käutner
script Helmut Käutner
Norbert Kunze
production Cosmopol-Film, Vienna
( Carl Szokoll )
Ufus, Belgrade
music Carl de Groof
camera Elio Carniel
cut Paula Dworak
Hermine Diethelm
occupation

The Last Bridge is an Austro-Yugoslav war and partisan drama by Helmut Käutner from 1953. Maria Schell and Bernhard Wicki play the leading roles .

action

During the Second World War in the Balkans , in Yugoslavia occupied by German troops . The head nurse and hospital doctor Helga Reinbeck, who runs the German military hospital Bjelo Jezero together with a doctor, loves Martin Berger, a German non-commissioned officer whose troops are under constant fire from Yugoslav partisans . One day Helga is lured out of the camp and kidnapped by the partisans. The reason: It is supposed to save the life of the only doctor who is on the other side. But the operation fails.

Helga now feels responsible for the partisans, who from now on have no medical care. Trust, care, and understanding gradually grow out of natural enmity. The humanity shown towards her awakens in her the realization that the "enemy" has just as human feelings and is no less worthy than "his own people". And so she sees it as an act of humanity to help the wounded among the partisans and to care for them, as she has done before with German compatriots. She quickly befriends the partisan leader Boro.

One day a fever - epidemic breaks out, Helga Reinbeck tried despite the danger to smuggle dropped behind German lines drugs to the partisans of English airplanes. During this life-threatening mission, the partisan who accompanied her, Militza, was killed. The German side becomes aware of this action. In order to get the drugs to the “enemy”, Helga finally has to cross a bridge that is between the enemy lines. At the crucial moment, when the German doctor finally wants to return to her own people, fire is opened on both sides. A ricochet hits Helga, she dies.

background

The shooting took place between September 7th and November 5th, 1953 in Yugoslavia . The filming locations were Mostar and the area around the Neretva .

The film had its premiere on February 11, 1954 in both Vienna and Berlin .

For the 34-year-old Bernhard Wicki , who credibly embodies a humanistic partisan leader, The Last Bridge meant the breakthrough as an actor. Six years later, in 1959, he addressed the madness of war with Die Brücke for the first time as a director.

Among the participating German-speaking artists, Tilla Durieux was the only one who actually sided with the Yugoslav partisans during the Second World War and, as the wife of the Berlin Jew Ludwig Katzenellenbogen , hid underground from the German occupiers.

The film structures come from Otto Pischinger , assisted by Wolf Witzemann . Käutner's assistant director Horst Hächler , who had also played a supporting role in The Last Bridge , became Maria Schell's husband four years later (1957).

The Last Bridge was the only war film among the 212 films produced in Austria between 1945 and 1955.

Awards

The FBL awarded the film the title valuable. Director Helmut Käutner received the silver film tape in 1954 . The Catholic Film League included The Last Bridge in the 1954 annual top list. It was recommended as the best film of the month (April 1954) by the Evangelical Film Guild . In 1955 there was a Bambi for the "artistically best film 1954". In addition, the film was awarded the Selznick gold laurel in 1954 of the David O. Selznick Prize for the “best film serving international understanding”.

At the Cannes Film Festival in 1954, Helmut Käutner was awarded two prizes for The Last Bridge . Maria Schell received a special mention for her acting performance. In 1955, Schell accepted the Finnish Jussi Film Prize. The international success of the film enabled the artist to take on serious roles in foreign films (especially in France and the USA).

Reviews

Curt Riess praises Käutner's performance and that of his two main actors in his memory book Das There was only once : “A big topic - not trivialized by Käutner, not made harmless. The best that can be said about his direction is that you hardly notice it. The big scenes do not look like scenes, but like recordings cut from a newsreel: documentary. Bernhard Wicki as a Yugoslav is so genuine that almost everywhere you think you are dealing with a local. The Schell is perfect: simple, clear, convincing, rousing - and not sentimental for a moment. "

In Heinrich Fraenkel's Immortal Film it can be read: "With the film The Last Bridge , Helmut Käutner created an uncompromisingly serious and artistically perfect work, and thus helped a German (sic!) Film to achieve deserved international recognition."

Reclam's film guide says: “A serious attempt at reconciliation and understanding. The film does not argue politically and does not take a stand for either side; it shows a person who has to recognize that the other side also has good arguments for itself. But this human problem is portrayed with more seriousness and realism than was common in German-language films at the time. "

The Lexicon of International Films wrote: "The film is demanding in terms of presentation and form, appeals urgently to forgiveness and unfortunately in places too much to the emotions of the audience."

In the Käutner biography, the film's large lexicon of people reminded us that after a series of spectacular flops ( The apple is off, King's Children, Epilogue , White Shadows, Captain Bay-Bay ) made a comeback with The Last Bridge . Up to this point in time, as one can also read in 'There's only one time', Käutner was “in the opinion of all producers a finished man”.

The online presence of Cinema called the film "A memorial for humanity".

Halliwell's Film Guide criticized: “Message melodrama, very ably put together with a bleakly tragic climax; but nothing at all new ".

Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide praised the leading actress: "Schell gives a well modulated performance as German doctor captured by Yugoslavian Partisans during WW2."

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.hsozkult.de/publicationreview/id/rezbuecher-21034
  2. ^ Alfred Bauer: German feature film Almanach. Volume 2: 1946-1955 , p. 540
  3. ↑ Curt Riess: There was only one time: The book of German film after 1945. Hamburg 1958, p. 354f.
  4. ^ Heinrich Fraenkel: Immortal Film . The great chronicle. From the first tone to the colored wide screen. Munich 1957, p. 335
  5. ^ Reclam's film guide . By Dieter Krusche, collaboration: Jürgen Labenski. Stuttgart 1973, p. 386.
  6. ↑ Klaus Brüne (Red.): Lexikon des Internationale Films Volume 5, p. 2212. Reinbek near Hamburg 1987.
  7. ↑ Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 4: H - L. Botho Höfer - Richard Lester. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 324.
  8. ↑ There's only one time, p. 353
  9. ↑ The last bridge in cinema.de
  10. ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 579
  11. ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 724

literature

  • Norbert Grob: The last bridge . In: Film Genres. War Movie. Edited by Thomas Klein, Marcus Stiglegger and Bodo Traber. Stuttgart: Reclam 2006, pp. 97-100 [with references]. ISBN 978-3-15-018411-0 .

Web links