Street acquaintance

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Movie
Original title Street acquaintance
Country of production Germany (East)
original language German
Publishing year 1948
length 104 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Peter Pewas
script Arthur Pohl
production Robert Leistenschneider
for DEFA
music Michael Jary
camera Georg Bruckbauer
cut Johanna Meisel
occupation

Street Acquaintance is a German DEFA film drama directed by Peter Pewas in 1948. The educational film remained the director's only DEFA work.

action

Erika is 20 years old, lives with her strict parents in a bare post-war apartment and works as a tiller in a laundry. She is always hungry. In her friend Else she sees how she should do it: Else has caught an older man who provides her with new stockings. Else is also a regular guest at the ominous Annemie, whose celebrations feature rich dishes and the men are very generous with women. After work, the poor journalist Walter, who has fallen in love with her, is waiting for Erika, who was invited by Else to Annemie that day. Erika lets him stand again, but shortly before they part, he gives her a silver-plated ring, which she accepts. As so often, a bowl of soup and a mother who reproaches her await Erika at home. After a short time Erika rebels and leaves. She goes to Annemie's, whose celebration is in full swing. Erika eats her fill at the party and Annemie realizes that Erika doesn't know that she can not only take, but also has to give at some point.

When Erika comes home at three in the morning, her father confronts her. Erika claims she was in the cinema. He reminds her not to jeopardize her honor and she replies that he himself collects cigarette butts from the street. The father slaps her, Erika packs her things and leaves. She doesn't know where to go. She cannot rent a room because she has no money and nothing to exchange. Suddenly she meets Walter, who realizes her situation. Walter offers Erika to live in his apartment, where she can move into an extra room. She agrees. Far from her parents, Erika becomes a frequent guest at Annemie's, with whom old Spitz also stays. One day he brings Herbert Petzoldt, returning from the war, with him. Herbert was a prisoner of war for three years. Now he returned to Berlin and met his wife Marion, who now works as a tram conductor. Initially enthusiastic about the closeness to his wife, Herbert realized that in his long absence she was having a brief affair with another man. He then went to Spitz and hoped to get some work and a change from it, but Spitz himself has no assignments. He takes him to Annemie, where Herbert drinks a lot and finally dances with Erika. Spitz gives Erika a pair of nylon stockings, which she enthusiastically tries on in an adjoining room in Herbert's presence. Herbert feels challenged by her and sleeps with her.

There is an argument between Herbert and Marion, which further weakens the woman, who is already suffering from health problems. At work, she can barely move because of the pain and eventually collapses. Meanwhile, while visiting the bar, Erika is surprised by a health raid in which Walter also participates as a reporter. Walter wants to free Erika from the crowd, but she too has to go to the hospital for an examination. Erika is confused while Walter asks himself for the first time whether a prejudice against women can really be fair. However, the doctor explains to him that, although women are often more likely to pass on the sexually transmitted diseases, men and thus the entire population must also be examined. There is just a lack of money to implement this. In turn, Erika is diagnosed at the hospital that she actually has gonorrhea . She suspects that she was infected with Herbert. He in turn learns that Marion has a sexually transmitted disease that she secretly tried to treat herself with medication, but that didn't work. He knows that he too is ill and has passed the disease on to Erika, and for the first time he becomes aware of his irresponsible actions, even if he passes the blame on to his wife. However, Erika comes to the hospital with other sick women. She is ashamed and secretly flees. Walter urges her to go back to the hospital, but she goes to Annemie. She explains her situation to them and Annemie suggests that drugs could be bought on the black market, but that they are very expensive. When Annemie changes in the bathroom, Erika surprises her and discovers large ulcers on her back. Erika is now the only one who knows Annemie's secret: she has had syphilis since the war , was treated for some time, but interrupted it and never resumed it because of the chaos after the war . Annemie infected her boyfriend and now they only have each other. Annemie implores Erika to be treated in the hospital or to grab a rope straight away. Erika rushes back to the hospital. She is later released as cured. Walter waits for them at the exit and they both walk away side by side.

production

The film was made on behalf of the Central Health Administration. The aim was to inform and educate the population about the risk of sexually transmitted diseases that were rampant in Berlin, which was then divided into four. “Almost everyone, especially in Berlin, has experienced enough unpleasant things in the field. But against the horrific statistics of sexually transmitted diseases, all propaganda means have to be used, ”said Der Spiegel in 1948. The social hygiene advice for the film was taken over by Dr. Klaus Boehmer.

Street acquaintance was filmed under the working title Falsche Scham from July 14th to December 12th 1947 in Berlin . The studio recordings were made in Berlin-Johannisthal. The costumes were created by Gertraud Recke , the production design by Wilhelm Depenau . The film had its premiere on April 13, 1948 in the Berlin film theater on Friedrichshain and was shown in East German cinemas on April 23, 1948.

As an exchange film between Central Germany and West Germany, street acquaintance also found its way into West German cinemas. The premiere in the British sector was on October 10, 1948 in Hamburg and in the American sector on December 9, 1949 in Munich. By 1950, almost 5,300,000 visitors had seen the film, making it one of the most popular DEFA films. On March 31, 2011, the film was released on the double DVD Peter Pewas Films 1932-1967 .

It was Peter Pewas' second feature film after The Enchanted Day and his only work for DEFA. Leading actress Gisela Trowe made her screen debut in the film.

stylistics

Christiane Mückenberger said that some of the scenes in the film were “reminiscent of French poetic realism ” and anticipated later DEFA films in Berlin. Herbert Ihering called the film style a "synthesis of French and Russian film - between Renoir and Donskoy ". Pewas himself had met Roberto Rossellini in 1947 and was fascinated by his films; Cameraman Georg Bruckbauer was again keen to experiment and, in addition to lighting effects, also increasingly used a wide-angle lens in the film, which became the optical red thread of the film. Bruckbauer and Pewas also consciously experimented with light and shadow. Fred Gehler summarized the stylistic features in 1991:

“The camera as a spotlight. The modeling with light, through light, so valued and discovered by German film classics. [...] The pans and the extreme wide-angle use in some scenes of the film would have led to eulogies on modern cinematic stylistics in other film countries. In the divided German cinematography in 1948, all of this went unnoticed or unnoticed. "

- Fred Gehler 1991

criticism

Der Spiegel described street acquaintance as an educational film in which, however, almost all contemporary problems are mixed up: “Hunger, homecomers, cardboard windows, hunger, pushers, women's work, hunger.” The case studies presented were criticized as not typical, the milieus again as “in the most brutal black - Drawn in white manner ". Other critics criticized the fact that only negative people and sides of Berlin appear in the film, but not "the people of the big city who stayed clean despite all the hardship."

The film-dienst said that the film was “comparatively serious, even if it was staged in an artistically undemanding way.” Frank-Burkhard Habel, on the other hand, found that the film “was a stylistically dense, film-artistically unusual work, whose qualities were criticized at the time were hardly noticed. ”Fred Gehler made a similar judgment in 1991, who called the film“ one of the most beautiful cinematic revelations of German post-war film ”and recognized that Pewas' commission to make an educational film“ did his best to give the authentic one Image of a young post-war generation in their helplessness and helplessness. She is greedy for life, thirsty for love. […] The dramatic construction of the film is astonishingly open: story and faces appear and are left again. A stalking tour through emotional landscapes. "

literature

  • Street acquaintance . In: F.-B. Habel: The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 588-589.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Meeting point: Health Department . In: Der Spiegel , No. 16, 1948, p. 24.
  2. ↑ See street acquaintance on defa.de
  3. ^ Alfred Bauer: German feature film Almanach. Volume 2: 1946-1955 , p. 32
  4. ^ Street acquaintance . In: Peter Pewas. Booklet for the film edition of Peter Pewa's films 1932–67 . absolut Medien, 2011, p. 16.
  5. ↑ Cf. Christiane Mückenberger: Time of Hope 1946 to 1949 . In: Ralf Schenk (Red.), Filmmuseum Potsdam (Hrsg.): The second life of the film city Babelsberg. DEFA feature films 1946–1992 . Henschel, Berlin 1994, p. 37.
  6. ↑ a b Fred Gehler: Street acquaintance . In: Film und Fernsehen , Berlin, No. 5, 1991, p. 15.
  7. ↑ Melis: Do you even know each other? In: Neues Deutschland , April 15, 1948.
  8. ^ Street acquaintance . In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  9. ^ Street acquaintance . In: F.-B. Habel: The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, p. 588.