Under the pear tree (1973)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Under the pear tree |
| Country of production | GDR |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1973 |
| length | 90 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Ralf Kirsten |
| script | Ralf Kirsten Brigitte Kirsten (assistance) Werner Beck (dramaturgy) |
| production | DEFA , KAG "Berlin" |
| music | André Asriel |
| camera | Wolfgang Braumann |
| cut | Ursula Zweig |
| occupation | |
| |
Unterm Birnbaum is a German film adaptation by Ralf Kirsten from 1973. The DEFA film is based on the story Unterm Birnbaum by Theodor Fontane .
action
The innkeeper Abel Hradschek is depressed by debts . His wife Ursula accuses him of being addicted to gambling in his own inn. He, in turn, criticizes the fact that, with the lifestyle introduced, she always pretends to have and be more than the others. She comes from a wealthy family from Hanover, was cast out as an actress by the family and converted from Catholicism to Protestantism for Abel . The children together died a few years ago.
In the village, the debt collector Szulski announced that Abel would have to hand over his entire fortune. When he finds an old skeleton digging under the pear tree , he makes a plan with Ursula. The debt collector appears and apparently leaves early the next day. In reality, it is Ursula who is in his clothes. The little carriage was found tipped over on the Oder a little later . The horse is dead, there is no trace of Szulski. Only his cap can be found. The Hradscheks are suspected of murder and neighbor Jeschken testifies that she saw Abel digging at the pear tree that night. The village gathers, but only the old skeleton is found under the pear tree. The pastor then preaches against the hasty suspicions of the villagers and portrays the Hradscheks as eternally suspects, as immigrants, but not guilty.
While Abel is looking forward to the future and renovating the house, Ursula, a woman of deep faith, falls apart because of her guilt. When she wants to reveal herself to the pastor, he sends her away. Abel also seems to have moved away from her. She no longer has access to God and so she finally falls seriously ill and dies a short time later. Abel, on the other hand, is prone to madness. When his servant claims that Szulski's ghost is haunted in the cellar, Abel wants to dig up the tax collector's body, which is actually buried there, and sink it in the Vistula. He falls into the cellar on the way. The next day the village mayor and the peasants find him dead. Szulski's hand rises from the ground next to him.
production
Unterm Birnbaum had its world premiere on November 16, 1973 in Berlin's Kino International . After Der stumme Gast (1945), it was the second film adaptation of Theodor Fontane's novella that came to the cinema. In 1963, 1964, 2014 and 2019, the material was also filmed for television.
criticism
The contemporary criticism found that director Kirsten presented the literary material "as a rambling moral picture, oscillating undecidedly between socio-critical description of time and psychological drama, unable to combine both components into a harmonious, also dramaturgically coherent whole." The characterization of the characters appears "opposite Fontane […] badly coarse, superficially, with a tendency towards satirical distortion that contradicts the original. "
Other critics criticized “a strange juxtaposition of individual action sequences. The interest in what is happening, which is repeatedly stimulated by certain details in the staging, does not last for long periods. There is no organic rhythm of the plot development, although that would be necessary for this story. "
The film-dienst wrote: "Tailored to the representation of the intellectual and social conditions around 1830, the film, which is meticulous in terms of milieu drawing, haunting in terms of character and mood, but is dramaturgically somewhat brittle and long-winded, achieves a high degree of intensity."
Cinema called the literary film adaptation "atmospherically photographed. Conclusion: Moritat full of dark images and souls ”.
Web links
- Under the pear tree in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Under the pear tree at filmportal.de
- Under the pear tree at the DEFA Foundation
Individual evidence
- ^ Hans-Dieter Tok: Neither Zeitbild nor moral drama . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung , November 18, 1973.
- ^ Rolf Richter: Based on a material by Fontane . In: Neues Deutschland , Berlin / GDR, November 22, 1973.
- ↑ Under the pear tree. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed July 21, 2018 .
- ↑ See cinema.de