A pyramid for me

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Movie
Original title A pyramid for me
Country of production GDR
original language German
Publishing year 1975
length 102 minutes
Rod
Director Ralf Kirsten
script Karl-Heinz Jakobs
Ralf Kirsten
production DEFA , KAG "Babelsberg"
music André Asriel
camera Hans-Jürgen Kruse
cut Ursula Zweig
occupation

A Pyramid for Me is a German DEFA film by Ralf Kirsten from 1975 based on the award-winning novel of the same name by Karl-Heinz Jakobs from 1971.

action

Prof. Dr. Paul Satie, in his mid-forties, a specialist in geological and hydrological issues, is on the way to an important conference at which he wants to justify his opposition to the construction of a new dam. Shortly before his destination, in Wolfsgrün, he leaves the train to remember his beginnings in professional life, because here he helped build the first dam about twenty years ago, which has now become too small. He is now looking for a memorial near it, which he and his brigade erected in the form of a pyramid in April 1949. Paul Satie finds the plinth, laboriously deciphered the inscription: “On April 22nd, 1949, our childhood friend Satie cut down the first spruce when we were building our huge dam. Eternal glory of our brigade ”. The base has sagged a little, is a little crooked, but it stands, and it is also overgrown with moss. On the way back to the train station he meets the farmer Balashin, who takes him back to the train station in his horse-drawn vehicle.

Balashin was and still is an opponent of Satie. The young builders blindly fought a road through the homestead for him and with it through his life. Over the years he has speculated on the collapse of socialist society and has not gone to the West to experience it. Through him Paul learns that several of his colleagues are still in wolf green. So does Annie, who runs a small hotel. From her he learns that his girlfriend at the time, Hanka, is still here and is now in a managerial position at the potash plant. He wants to meet her, takes a hotel room and goes to the hairdresser's. This is his former friend Trümpi from the dam brigade, who has returned to his former job and which he only recognized after a long time.

The next day, Paul goes looking for Hanka. He left it on the construction site in 1951 on his way to university, with the promise that he would catch it up when he found decent accommodation in Dresden. When she tried to find him in the dormitory several times, she was not lucky, because he moved in with Margot immediately after his arrival, who had also worked on the dam and to whom he is married today. So he couldn't find out that Hanka had a boy from him half a year later.

All these experiences have caused a rethink in Paul Satie and he will withdraw his negative justification for building a new dam.

production

A pyramid for me was turned on ORWO-Color by the artistic working group “Babelsberg” . The film was only released in theaters one year late after numerous changes and recuts.

The world premiere took place on December 4, 1975 in the Kosmos cinema in Berlin . It was first broadcast on GDR television on August 19, 1977 in the second program.

The author Karl-Heinz Jakobs received the Heinrich Mann Prize in 1972 for the novel from 1971 .

criticism

Helmut Ulrich wrote in the Neue Zeit that the scriptwriters probably wanted to take too much from the book. The contours of the characters don't seem as clear as in the novel. The two time levels of the plot, which were separated by hard cuts, can hardly be distinguished stylistically.

For Günter Sobe from the Berliner Zeitung , the film was, despite some objections, Ralf Kirsten's most respectable work.

The lexicon of international film writes that the interesting topic helps over some artistic weaknesses. The explosive topic of the film, its criticism of the East German generation, forced cuts and cuts until it was approved for cinema.

literature

  • A pyramid for me In: F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 467-468.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Neue Zeit of December 11, 1975, p. 4
  2. ↑ Berliner Zeitung of December 12, 1975, p. 6
  3. ↑ A pyramid for me. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used