Fog (1963)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | fog |
| Country of production | GDR |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1963 |
| length | 97 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Joachim Hasler |
| script | Joachim Hasler, Horst Beseler |
| production |
DEFA , KAG "Heinrich Greif" |
| music | Hans-Dieter Hosalla |
| camera | Joachim Hasler, Helmut Grewald |
| cut | Hildegard Tegener |
| occupation | |
| |
Nebel is a German feature film from the DEFA studio for feature films by Joachim Hasler from 1963 .
action
In Hyde's hotel, three men are discussing the waters of the English town of Rocksmouth, whose nautical chart lies before them. They are the German Eberhard Wedel and the Englishmen Mr. Wolseley and Mr. Edwards, who are supposed to find a future port for NATO that will be paid for by the Federal Republic of Germany. Rocksmouth Harbor is ideal for military use, only a wreck lying in the fairway causes some difficulties. Its recovery is to begin on the next day, September 20, 1962, but Bunburri, the owner of the recovery company, advises against this, as this is a sad day for the residents of the city. Twenty years ago, on September 20, 1942, the “Princess of India”, which was supposed to bring children from the war zones to Canada , was sunk by a German submarine and 58 people, mostly children, perished. That is why every year a wreath is laid at the wreck, at which the first remaining relatives arrive at the hotel. The daughter of the hotel employee, Mrs. Lindsay, was one of the victims on the sunk ship, while today's diver Bill Smith survived the accident as a child.
Although Bill Smith initially refused to dive to the wreck, friends and colleagues convinced him to do so. The fact that he is introduced to Eberhard Wedel, whose name he associates with the wreck, also plays a role. When he heard Wedel's words by chance that a ship hit in the middle would break through there while recovering, he realized that it must have been on the submarine, because only an insider can know that. In order to find evidence for his thesis, Bill steals Wedel's room key at the reception to search his room and is surprised by the hotel owner, who has an interest in his papers. Because of the rumor that Wedel's company wants to build an oil refinery at the port , he has already bought several worthless warehouses there, which is why he is now completely financially ruined, which is revealed by his documents in the room. In the hotel lobby, however, Bill confronts the German with the suspicion that he was on the submarine, which he denies.
The next day, Wedel is found dead floating in the sea. The medical examination reveals that he drowned, but that his body had severe abrasions and blows to the head and a severe bruise in the back area. When Sub-Inspector Stone shows up with a revolver that was found in the harbor area at Inspector Benson's, who recognizes the firearm as his, he hands over the processing of the case to Stone because of bias, who immediately arrests Bill Smith, since only he has the gun in the harbor may have brought. In front of the attorney assigned to him, Bill Smith is silent, just as he does not speak before the court, which the prosecutor interprets as an admission of his guilt.
The events of September 20, 1942 come up again before the court. Mrs. Lindsay tells how the children got on board and how the “Princess of India” is hit by two torpedoes , in which her daughter was killed. This will be followed by a hearing from Inspector Banson, who was on duty at Rocksmouth Harbor radio station at the time of the attack on the ship. In this function he also overheard the entire radio traffic of the German submarine and thus learned the name of the commander. It was Eberhard Wedel who, as lieutenant captain, gave the command to fire the torpedoes, although he was informed about the Kindertransport. Banson had also told this story to his future son-in-law, Bill Smith.
This statement moved Bill Smith to claim that he killed Wedel. That is the reason for his friend Harry Growe to testify what he observed that evening in the harbor: Smith and Wedel meet on the quay and Smith threatens the German with the weapon stolen from Benson. In the scramble, Wedel snatches the revolver and now aims at Bill when a freight train hits him from behind. Wedel falls to the ground and then falls into the docks without Smith being able to rush to his aid. The prosecutor then withdrew his lawsuit against Bill Smith
Production and publication
Nebel was shot as a black and white film in Totalvision by the artistic work group "Heinrich Greif" and had its world premiere on March 14, 1963 in the Kosmos cinema in Berlin . The film was first broadcast on television on January 22, 1965 by German television .
The dramaturgy was in the hands of Willi Brückner . The Jazz Optimists Berlin performed as a bar musician and backing band for Manfred Krug .
Awards
- 1963: Commission for the rating of valuable DEFA feature films: artistically valuable
criticism
In New Germany Horst Knietzsch remarked :
"In this action, an essential topic of our day is taken up and not designed without a sensitivity for human behavior."
In the Berliner Zeitung , Dr. Manfred Jelenski:
"The fact that this highly political, important topic was designed in the form of a detective film with a covert plot means increasing tension for the viewer, a constant interest in the characters, and the gradual recognition of the causes of their behavior."
The lexicon of international films writes that this is an exciting, visually expressive political crime thriller.
literature
- F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 431 to 432 .
- Mirko Wiermann: Tension and atmosphere in the Cold War. Nebel (GDR 1963) by Joachim Hasler . In: Filmblatt, vol. 25 (2020), issue 72, pp. 69–80.
Web links
- Fog in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Nebel at filmportal.de
- Fog at the DEFA Foundation
Individual evidence
- ↑ Neues Deutschland, March 15, 1963, p. 4
- ↑ Neues Deutschland, May 17, 1963, p. 4
- ↑ Neues Deutschland, March 17, 1963, p. 4
- ↑ Berliner Zeitung of March 20, 1963, p. 6
- ↑ Fog. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed November 4, 2019 .