17/02/2010

Since GDR-themed films have become, let’s admit it – said writer Torsten Schulz, who penned the screenplay to Matti Geschonneck’s Boxhagener Platz [+see also:
trailer
film profile], before journalists at the film’s special screening at the Berlinale – a genre in their own right in German cinema, this title is a gem within that genre, and is full of humour without lapsing into the burlesque.

Schulz believes that Boxhagener Platz is the GDR-themed film that was missing, insisting also that its purely fictional nature makes it more authentic. The film’s rich narrative is here accompanied by a sort of sum total, which really brings together all aspects of the GDR, as remarked by the German audience members.

Indeed this title, set in 1968 during the Prague Spring, contains several major themes that blend together harmoniously without competing for attention. First and foremost, it’s the story of an old lady, Otti (Gudrun Ritter), who is delightfully outspoken and outlives all the men she has known, and has not lost her ability to make new conquests, as proven by her budding love affair with Michael Gwisdek, an old-school Communist.

It is also the story of her grandchild, who acts as a link between numerous characters, whose secrets he knows, and thus discovers different facets of the propaganda and practices of the Stasi, to the point where he gets caught up in it and ends up feeling guilty.

In fact, we get to know the whole family: the dissatisfied mother who dreams of escape; the brother who hides his homosexuality (with a long-haired, West-German partner who sympathises with the ideals of 1968); and the weak policeman father, who is looked down upon by his family and colleagues despite his good intentions (an unusual role for star Jürgen Vogel).

Boxhagener... also paints the portrait of an era and a host of characters of all political hues, including turncoats, from servile partisans of the system to active protesters, in a neighbourhood that echoes with strong Berlin slang, which will no doubt delight German audiences. All this with a thriller in the background (who killed that old Nazi fishmonger, Otti’s bashful lover?) and the lack of certain goods in East-Berlin, which enables us to witness the crossing over to the West with scrupulously checked visitors’ permits.

The film’s major achievement, considering its ambition, is to succeed in telling this whole story in a light-hearted way, without however losing any of its lucidity. Perhaps this is because, deep down, as Vogel pointed out at the press conference, it’s a film which, beneath its light tone, endeavours to understand human beings. Pandora will release it on German screens on March 4.

(Translated from French)