heavy german/austrian movie night part 1

movies, originally uploaded by John Barleycorn.

Had a German/Austrian themed movie night yesterday. Heavy stuff! I started with Fritz Langs totally mind blowing movie The Testament of Dr Mabuse. It's almost impossible to understand that this movie was made back in 1933. It feels so fresh and it has a very modern pacing. There's a lot of inventive action in this movie combined with a spectacular and very dark plot. The scene where the spirit or ghost of Dr Mabuse haunts and takes control over Prof. Dr. Baum is still after all these years very strong and creepy. The car chase at the end is also absolutely brilliant. One of the best I've ever seen in a movie. The chase is illuminated by the cold lights from the cars and reflects on white stones besides the road and on spooky almost skeleton like trees. It's beautiful!
After that I travelled in time to Neukölln, Berlin, in the late 70's. The movie Wir Kinder Vom Bahnhof Zoo is about 14 year old Christiane F and her descent into despair, drug addiction and prostitution. This is a real 70's movie eventhough it was made in 1981. Uli Edel has made an extremely realistic and very dark movie. It's the total opposite of heroin chic. The movie has an excellent soundtrack based on David Bowies Eno/Berlin era. V-2 Schneider and Heroes from his 1977 Heroes album are a perfect match to the story and the icy cold pictures. For more info try this insanely rich and detailed fan site. Loads of pictures and stuff.
Finally I watched the classic The Third Man (1949) directed by Carol Reed and based on a script by Graham Greene. The movie is set in a bomb-damaged Vienna, just after the Second World War, and shot in a beautiful and expressionist black and white. I think that this quote by Harry Lime (played by Orson Welles) sums the movie up pretty well:
"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Holly."
This is a movie about a society in disintegration and despair. The Austrians seems to struggle between a feeling of relief that the war and the Nazi rule is over and a feeling of humiliation towards the victorious occupying nations. This is not an allied propaganda movie - far from. It's a beautiful movie full of complex characters and storylines. It reminds me a bit of Casablanca (Alida Valli both looks and speaks like Ingrid Bergman) but the ghost like Vienna makes this movie much darker.

The End