Genres and Film Topics in Germany

Even 16 years after reunification, the GDR is still a theme shaping the landscape of German film. For the East has remained alien to the West, and life in the "first socialist state on German soil" still tends to be described in clichés.

Films relating stories about everyday life and attitudes to life on the other side of the "anti-imperialist protective wall", "Easterns" as Leander Haussmann dubbed them at an award ceremony for Sun Alley, have meanwhile become box-office hits. His film about a group of young people in East Berlin in the 1970s – launched cautiously at first only in the East of the Republic – also became a surprise hit in the West. Good Bye, Lenin!, the story of a son who preserves the reality of GDR life for his ailing mother after the state has collapsed, has been shown in 50 countries since 2003 and was even nominated for an Oscar.

Film-makers from East and West broached this theme

Yet the story of the German "Eastern" does not begin with the two box-office hits. Even before 1999 there were films that dealt with life behind the Berlin wall. After the initial euphoria, comedies such as Go Trabi Go (1990) by Peter Timm, a former cabaret artist in the GDR, and No more Mr Nice Guy (Wir können auch anders) 1993, from the North German director Detlev Buck, hit the cinemas. Then the film elite from East and West seized upon the topic of reunification, its aftermath and the reflections upon (one’s own) life in the GDR. In 1991 The Mistake (Die Verfehlung) by Heiner Carow was released, a year later came Heart Leap (Herzsprung) by Helke Misselwitz. Bernd Böhlich directed the TV film Landscape With Thorns (Landscape mit Dornen), a project started in the GDR era and completed after the fall of the wall. This story of young people, who feel unable to respect the conformist generation of their parents and whose aggression is increasingly directed against themselves, was awarded the most prestigious German television prize, the Grimme Award. In the West, at the beginning of the ‘90s, reunification dramas were on the agenda, such as Apple Trees (Apfelbäume) by Helma Sanders-Brahms (1992) or The Promise (Das Versprechen) by Margarete von Trotta (1994).

Success came with insouciance

Not until ten years after the fall of the Berlin wall, which changed the life of many people so drastically, did the films readopt a more laidback, even humorous style of narration. In his film Sun Alley, based on the book by Thomas Brussig, Leander Haussmann was still criticized as being superficial for his light-hearted portrayal of "youth in the GDR". But the film was a hit with movie-goers. The Zimmerspringbrunnen (i.e. The Indoor Fountain), 2002, in which Peter Timm has a travelling salesman invent a fountain in the shape of GDR landmarks, complete with the former national anthem, was not quite so successful. But in 2003 came Good Bye Lenin! And this tragicomedy, honoured with many awards, directed by Wolfgang Becker, was an instant hit with the international audience in the Berlinale competition.

Bernd Lichtenberg, who had the idea for the film and wrote the script, claims that its success was mainly due to the fact that "a family story is told" which makes the reality of life and the events around the fall of the wall comprehensible to the uninitiated from France to Korea. Another aspect in the success of the "Eastern" is its particular aesthetic, according to Lothar Holler, who created the set design for Böhlich and Misselwitz, Timm, Haussmann and Becker. Holler, Professor at the "Konrad Wolf" Academy for Film and Television in Potsdam, Babelsberg, has resurrected the GDR for a number of films. Most recently for the successful team Haussmann/Brussig, whose burlesque on everyday life in the East German military, NVA – again produced by Boje/Buck – was released in autumn 2005.

The producers from X-Filme, who after the Lenin boom soon came up with another success in Go For Zucker! (Alles auf Zucker), were about to launch the première of Red Cockatoo (Der rote Kakadu). This film about jazz fans in the GDR was directed by Dominik Graf.

There seems no end to the series of "Easterns". And at the festivals here they are constantly a hotbed of discussion, according to Lothar Holler. For example, due to directing talents like Robert Thalheim. The student from Babelsberg has already presented a celebrated debut with his "Eastern" - Netto, a father-son story set in East Berlin.