Märkische Gesellschaft mbH

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title Märkische Gesellschaft mbH
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1991
length 73 minutes
Rod
Director Volker Koepp
script Volker Koepp
production DEFA -Studio for Documentary Films GmbH
camera Thomas Plenert
cut Angelika Arnold

Brandenburg mbH is a documentary film of the DEFA studios for documentaries GmbH by Volker Koepp from the year 1991st

action

The company sign still says VEB Holzschuhe -Pantinen Zehdenick , a gang saw saws tree trunks into boards, as they are used for the production of wooden shoes. Production is still working, the material stores are full, as are the stores for finished products. One of the employees out of old habit still calls the company VEB , although it has already been converted into a GmbH . Then the title of the film Märkische Gesellschaft mbH appears and the hit song Farewell is a sharp sword by Roger Whittaker . In addition, the banknotes of the GDR , up to a value of 100 marks, are shown with the front and back.

The film team drives a West Berliner in her Rolls-Royce on the country roads north of Berlin . During the trip, she reflects the thoughts that move her on her first trip to this part of Germany. The Russians are also an issue, but they have not seriously perceived them as a threat in the past twenty years. When her way leads to a barracks of the group of the Soviet armed forces in Germany , which has already been cleared , she becomes thoughtful and taciturn.

While a technologist from the Zehdenick brickworks expresses his worries about the future of his company, an elderly lady comes by looking for the Märkische brick industry. During the conversation that develops, she explains that she comes from Wolfsburg and is currently attending the German Catholic Day in Berlin. She says that she originally lived in Silesia , where a large part of her property is still and where she would like to go back. Some of her property is still in the brick works in Zehdenick, which she would like to see now, and she was also a shareholder there . After World War II she found in the west of Germany refuge, but this has not helped her much, because there had again Jews call the shots, of which only after their escape fleeced was. It is May 1990.

Several episodes are recorded by the film team on the trips across the country. A young woman is shown who has opened a kiosk and which the villagers like to visit. Two young men are also staying there who have just become unemployed, the reason for the dismissal was the consumption of alcohol during working hours, which would not have previously led to dismissal. Soviet soldiers are also shown engaged in trading with German citizens in the woods with some things.

Zehdenick is preparing for the currency changeover on July 1, 1990. In the department store on June 30th the last goods from the GDR production are sold for GDR marks and the rest cleared from the shelves. The last of the Eastern currency is drunk in a restaurant, while after midnight in front of the door various banknotes go up in flames with joy. The next day, the Zehdenickers meet in the town hall of Zehdenick to pay out the Deutsche Mark from the Deutsche Bundesbank . In the department store the new goods are priced and the shelves filled. The streets are full of market vendors hoping for good business with the new money, and even a used car dealer has appeared. A porn film is being shown in the cinema for Westgeld.

On the way to a military airfield, the film team drives past long columns of Soviet army vehicles. A GDR citizen, who is good friends with one of the Soviet pilots, sits in the flight path of the runway . He knows from his friend Shenja, who comes from Kharkov , that the pilots are doing very well in the GDR. They have a nice apartment and earn good money, they all want to stay in Germany and are very insecure when they think about the future. It also happens again and again that Soviet soldiers desert in order not to have to go back home. Shenja himself wishes that the Russians had never won the war, then he wouldn't be here today and have all these problems. Today the Russians feel more like losers, because as winners, when Shenja's parents visited him once and they saw the displays in the shops, tears came to them.

In front of a dormitory, several contract workers from Mozambique sit on their packed boxes and wait for their journey home. There is no longer any work for them in the GDR, which is why they became unemployed and now have to leave the country.

On the eve of October 3, 1990, a service was held in the Zehdenicke Church on the occasion of the Day of German Unity , in which the pastor remembers the wishes of the GDR population and the guilt of each individual for the previous GDR system. Then the believers walk through the city streets with lit candles. But there is another way to celebrate the transition as well. Several young people have gathered in front of a restaurant, already very drunk, with New Year's Eve bangs and singing part of the first verse of the German song at midnight, committing the transition to a new state.

Production and publication

Märkische Gesellschaft mbH was shot as a black and white film under the working titles Zehdenick III and Märkische Trilogie .

The film had its first verifiable performance on June 21, 1991 at the Berlin Filmkunsthaus Kino Babylon . The first detectable television broadcast took place on April 21, 1992 on the television station Hessen 3 .

criticism

Hans-Jörg Rother writes in the Neue Zeit

“In this third part, Volker Koepp bids farewell to the GDR. He manages to develop a serenity. which takes the frightening away from the grotesque of many upheavals. The irony with which, for example, he flips through old banknotes is a good remedy for left-wing nostalgia. When at the end the camera in the car drives through the empty combustion chambers of the brickworks, which has since been closed, and the noise of the engine mixes with opera arias, the audience knows that the last act of a brief historical staging has ended and the stage will be cleared. "

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Berliner Zeitung of June 20, 1991, p. 21
  2. ↑ Neue Zeit of April 21, 1992, p. 7
  3. ↑ Neue Zeit of June 26, 1991, p. 13