Genres and Film Topics in Germany

Docu-fiction, docu-fake, docu-soap and reality show are concepts that have been circulating in the documentary film scene since the 1990’s, and are the subject of intense debate. Today, the cross-over trend among film genres is taking on a new dimension.

In recent years, film productions that present documentary contents in fictionalised form are increasingly making their appearance in Germany and elsewhere. They make use of feature film stylistic tools and dramaturgy such as the shot-reverse shot principle: the dissolution of a dialog by setting up alternating takes of the protagonists is an example. The cutter Inge Schneider made use of this technique in both Andres Veiel’s 2004 documentary film, Die Spielwütigen (i.e. crazy for acting) for which she was awarded the Film Plus Prize for best cutting, and in Bettina Blümner’s 2008 Prinzessinnenbad (i.e. pool of princesses), that went on to win the German Film Prize of 2008 as best documentary film. In the film, Die Spielwütigen, the acting student Antoniadis - conventionalised as an enfant terrible –even seems to take aim at the parents with a pistol while the prospective theater students are apparently engaged in a conversation with their parents - and this seems credible at first. Remember Pudovkin and Eisenstein? In fact, neither of these shot-reverse shot confrontations took place in this way; they all arose in the cutting room. While Schneider only put together the shot-reverse shot scenes for Die Spielwütigen in the post-production phase, the filming of Prinzessinenbad was planned according to this principle from the start. The Kreuzberg (Berlin) teenagers are followed about in their social environment while they chat with each other, and the camera is present right in the middle of things, evidently without disturbing the conversation – just as in a fictional film.

Bizarre and fantastic action

In some cases, turning points and dissolutions for the purpose of dramatisation are utilised in ways similar to those familiar to viewers of genre feature films: An American camera man has vanished. A friend of his, a German director named Christian Bauer, starts investigating. Right at the beginning of the film Missing Allen – Wo ist Allen Ross? (Germany, 2001), Bauer discovers a suitcase belonging to his friend that contains strange esoteric utensils and books such as Vanishing Is A Teachable Skill and The Good Samaritan, as well as a photo of Allen’s wife Linda, in addition to the obligatory 16mm camera, at one of Allen’s neighbors. In this way, all relevant pointers for the further development of the action are put in place without the viewer being made aware of it. After the first quarter of the film, Linda emerges as the leader of the Samaritans, an American religious cult that believes that evil can enter the world through holes in outer space. In the third quarter of the film she even emerges as Allen’s possible killer. Does the plot seem familiar? Does the action seem bizarre and fantastic? No, we are not dealing with a blockbuster thriller here, but with a documentary film investigating real events, but that has been very skilfully staged in mystery-thriller style, with riddles and surprising solutions, suspense curves and turning points. But happy ends are rare in real life, and this film does not offer one, either. But it was for this reason that Missing Allen was nominated for the European Film Prize in 2002 and the Grimme Prize in 2003.

Gaps laid bare: the viewer fills in the details

Fictionalisation does not necessarily lead to emotional overwhelming. It can also encourage reflection about the construction of narratives, about the fictional constructions in our own narrative history. Who is telling a story about whom? From what perspective is the story being told? And what is being concealed? Philip Scheffner’s film, The Halfmoon Files (Germany, 2007), awarded the Goethe Institute Prize at the 2007 Duisburg Film Week,  probes these questions. Scheffner describes The Halfmoon Files as a ghost story. The filmmaker becomes a ghost hunter, in this case he investigates the human destinies behind the voices of Indian prisoners of war interned in Wünsdorf near Berlin that were recorded on shellac records during the First World War. The same was done with Kaiser Wilhelm’s voice as he called for war. But Scheffner discovers that the recording was made in January 1918, when it was clear that the war had already been lost. This little detail has been overlooked or even intentionally concealed by most journalists and filmmakers who have dealt with this material until now.  Covering up inconsistencies and whitewashing gaps in documentary material allows little fictional realities to take shape in our minds.
Scheffner deconstructs these historical building blocks and materials, and reassembles them to delineate another possible reality – a ghost story. Where there is no sound the film stays silent, where there is no picture the screen stays black. The gaps have been laid bare, and have to be filled in in our minds. In this way, the ghosts slowly reawaken to life and enter our consciousness. The film shows us that our reality is inescapably enmeshed with fiction, that fiction is an unavoidable aspect of our reality and outlook on the world. Only when we bring  transparency into our own fictional constructs do we acquire self-knowledge and understanding of others. A documentary film cannot fulfill a higher demand than that.