Five days - five nights
Five Days - Five Nights is a German-Soviet post-war drama by Leo Arnstam (main direction), Heinz Thiel and Anatoli Golowanow , which was created in 1961 in cooperation with DEFA and Mosfilm . It deals with the rescue of the paintings in the Dresden Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister shortly after the end of the Second World War .
action
Day 1: On May 8, 1945, Soviet soldiers occupy Dresden. The Second World War is over. Communist Erich Braun comes back to the city, which is a field of rubble. In the midst of rubble and destruction, Captain Leonow searches for the missing pictures in the Dresden picture gallery. He is referred to the painter Paul Naumann. He owns pictures, but only those that he has drawn himself and which, in addition to the destruction of the city, also address his great love Katrin. Paul lost his left arm in the war and never wants to paint again. Leonov asks him to take the soldiers to the picture gallery. There the men meet the museum employee Luise Rank, who initially pretends not to know anything about the whereabouts of the pictures. When she realizes that Leonow is an art lover, she gives him a card that she found in a safe. A tunnel is drawn on it, in which a few dozen paintings in the gallery are finally found, including Rembrandt's Rembrandt and Saskia in the parable of the prodigal son . In the tunnel, Paul recognizes Erich Braun among the soldiers, who was arrested at the time with Katrin. He tells Paul that Katrin helped a Russian woman in a concentration camp and was probably murdered for it. Paul refuses Erich's request to draw a poster with a call to fight because he never wants to fight again.
Day 2: From Moscow the recognized restorer and art historian, Dr. Nikitina brought to Dresden. The pictures have suffered a lot from the moisture in the tunnel, layers of paint are peeling off and other pictures are beginning to show cracks or to become moldy. On Paul's advice, the paintings found are brought to Rassnitz Castle. The experts are working on the first emergency restoration of the pictures. When the Sistine Madonna is set up in a hall, all those present remain fascinated and moved by the sight of the picture, and Sergeant Koslow, who previously showed a lack of understanding that people are worried about the paintings in view of the situation in the city, never confesses To have seen better.
Day 3: Paul sees numerous concentration camp survivors passing by the soldiers' car on a street. Leonov fends off aggressiveness by other soldiers towards him as Germans - not everyone is to blame for the atrocities of the Nazis. The soldiers look for more pictures in the gallery, drive to the villages and look in churches for missing pictures. In a village they are made aware of Waldstein Castle, where SS men would still live. Since Paul refuses to be forcibly stormed the castle, he leaves the soldiers and goes back to Dresden on foot. In Meißen he unexpectedly meets Katrin again, who survived the concentration camp. The soldiers successfully storm Waldstein, where they can secure more paintings from the gallery. On the way back they meet a worker who hands them Paul and the exhausted Katrin.
Day 4: The worker realizes that more pictures must be stored in the Brigitte shaft, his former place of work. Meanwhile, Katrin becomes active in Dresden. She leaves Paul in the apartment, who refuses to take part in current affairs or in the class struggle . Erich Braun asks her to get the city's orphans out of the ruins and she sets off. Among the children she brings back to the city center is a little blond boy whom Sergeant Koslow greeted as the “first German” when the Soviet soldiers marched into Dresden. Meanwhile, Nikitina and other professionals realize that the pictures in Dresden can only receive first aid. Correct restoration measures could only be taken in Moscow, so that it is decided to bring the pictures to the Soviet Union. Paul feels betrayed by the "winners". The worker appears in Dresden and says that the pictures that were missing so far are probably stored in the Brigitte shaft. The soldiers go to the heavily mined shaft and the worker and Sergeant Kozlov go into the shaft first. Koslow succeeds in defusing all the mines. In the cave area where the water has collected, he finally finds all the missing paintings, some of them standing in the water. When he picks up a painting floating in the water, a mine below explodes. He is killed in the explosion. The worker can leave the mine and report the find to the others.
Day 5: The paintings from the shaft are recovered. In the middle of the pictures stands Koslow's coffin and Luise Rank pays her last respects to the dead. Paul has joined the crowd of children rescued by Katrin and paints the "first German" with a teddy bear in his arm, which he was supposed to give him on behalf of Sergeant Koslow. It will be a poster that calls for struggle. However, the little boy should never forget Koslow and the people he met in difficult times shortly after the end of the war.
production
Five Days - Five Nights was shot under the working title Dresdener Galerie 1960 in Dresden, among other places. However, numerous ruins of the city were made as models from contemporary photographs. The film had its German premiere on March 7, 1961 in the Leipzig Capitol and was released in GDR cinemas on March 31, 1961. Previously, the production under the title Пять дней, пять ночей ( Pjat dnei, pjat notschei ) premiered on February 28, 1961 in Moscow. It was the first film collaboration between the GDR and the Soviet Union.
The film music comes from Dmitri Schostakowitsch , who was invited to Saxon Switzerland in advance to get inspiration. His well-known 8th String Quartet, Op. 110, was created, some of which was also used in the film music (op. 111). The Moscow State Symphonic Film Orchestra performed under Grigory Gamburg.
criticism
The contemporary criticism found that the film lacks depth in the end due to the intended breadth of the narrative and the effort to "create a large painting of the times". For example, the love story between Paul and Katrin remains superficial.
The lexicon of international film criticized Five Days - Five Nights as "awkwardly told and poorly staged, and full of historical inaccuracies".
literature
- F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 189-191 .
Web links
- Five days - five nights in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Five days - five nights at filmportal.de
- Five days - five nights at the DEFA Foundation
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b State Film Archive of the GDR . Film archive 4th DEFA feature films 1st part . Berlin 1989, pp. 214/215
- ↑ F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 190-191 .
- ↑ Winfried Junge: When all the film people in the world . In: Forum , No. 12, 1961.
- ↑ Five days - five nights. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .