David O'ConnellThe Murderers are Among Us
October 20th 2009 03:50
Berlin in 1945 was a city of capitulation, its streets flanked by mountainous stacks of rubble. From beneath its disintegrating facade, a drunken surgeon, Hans Mertens (Ernst Wilhelm Borchert), haunted by personal demons and disillusioned by the futility of his profession, emerges with a staggering gait. Returning to his dilapidated apartment, he discovers the previous tenant, Susanne Wallner (Hildegard Knef) has returned from the concentration camp she was shunted off to three years ago.
A reluctant compromise is reached, but their co-habitation in the tiny apartment’s two rooms causes conflict at first; yet the reprieved Susanne refuses to allow despair to rule her existence, and by degrees becomes a stabilizing force in Mertens’ life, a guardian angel offering a ray of light through the apertures of the crumbling city and his constant drunken fog.
A third key figure will emerge in the form of Ferdinand Brueckner (Arno Paulsen), a factory owner whose capacity for generating wealth has only been enhanced by the war; he has a strong connection to the source of Mertens’ inner turmoil, one slowly unveiled as the doctor’s glum indifference transforms into outrage.
Director Wolfgand Staudte's 1946 film is about intertwining notions of atonement and guilt, both personal and those attributable to a collective consciousness. Wrestling with a host of demons brings misery to Mertens’ life, whilst the inexplicable lack of compassion that allows Brueckner to thrive post-war is also highlighted in subtle ways - his first appearances even hint at a scrupulous, benign force. But as the end nears, a crucial flashback reveals the defining link between the two men - the moment at which Mertens’ torment began at the hands of condemned souls invading his sleep with their lamentations.
Marked by its stark, haunting expressionism, a neo-realist grit, and wrapped in the gloom of textbook film noir grammar, Staudte’s film has aged no more than its archetypal Hollywood contemporaries. In complex ways, The Murderers are Among Us deals with light and shade, the fine line between holding fast to your sense of empowerment in the face of adversity, and tipping over into a vortex of self-annihilation.
This is never more obvious than in the scene where Mertens is pulled back from the verge of unleashing his wrath on Brueckner by the frantic cries of a mother in search of a doctor to tend to her ailing daughter. Mertens relieves the girl’s suffering, saving her and possibly himself as well.
Yes, the burgeoning love between Mertens and Susanne feels somewhat forced, but as the necessary agent of his salvation it’s easy to overlook the stammering progress of their union and the unlikely leap it takes half way through the film. Both actors are magnificent with the baleful Borchert a powerhouse as the distraught doctor whose moral reconfiguration began in the wake of the war’s first real outbreak; in his eyes, the conquests of science started to lose all definition, reduced to superfluous oars against the tide of battle.
The beautiful Knef, as a rich symbolic representation of the purity capable of surviving any heinous attempts at dehumanisation, provides wonderful contrast, whilst Paulsen is chilling as the insidious Brueckner.
Staudte’s film was the country's first after the war and the first from DEFA, East Germany's state-run production company. As well as authenticating the devastating social implications on both a personal and broader level, it stands the test of time as a riveting, heavily stylized artistic statement.
Despite the brief running time, Staudte's screenplay allows for interesting moments that reveal more startling contrasts amongst survivors; in the same apartment building, a gentle old man patiently waits for a letter from his son that may never come, whilst a charatan astrologist proclaims scientific means of predicting the future for the helplessly gullible.
Haunting use is made of the bombed remains of the city with its overwhelming mounds of broken rubble. Negotiating between them and the soiled remains of the ravaged apartment building, Staudte and his two cinematographers offer a wealth of arresting imagery, before finally, intimate, moving affirmation of the human spirit from the darkest days of this divided country and its freshly opened wounds.
The Murderers are Among Us screens at ACMI (the Australian Centre for the Moving Image) in Melbourne on October 22 and 25 as part of the Focus on East German Cinema retrospective.
A reluctant compromise is reached, but their co-habitation in the tiny apartment’s two rooms causes conflict at first; yet the reprieved Susanne refuses to allow despair to rule her existence, and by degrees becomes a stabilizing force in Mertens’ life, a guardian angel offering a ray of light through the apertures of the crumbling city and his constant drunken fog.
A third key figure will emerge in the form of Ferdinand Brueckner (Arno Paulsen), a factory owner whose capacity for generating wealth has only been enhanced by the war; he has a strong connection to the source of Mertens’ inner turmoil, one slowly unveiled as the doctor’s glum indifference transforms into outrage.
Director Wolfgand Staudte's 1946 film is about intertwining notions of atonement and guilt, both personal and those attributable to a collective consciousness. Wrestling with a host of demons brings misery to Mertens’ life, whilst the inexplicable lack of compassion that allows Brueckner to thrive post-war is also highlighted in subtle ways - his first appearances even hint at a scrupulous, benign force. But as the end nears, a crucial flashback reveals the defining link between the two men - the moment at which Mertens’ torment began at the hands of condemned souls invading his sleep with their lamentations.
Marked by its stark, haunting expressionism, a neo-realist grit, and wrapped in the gloom of textbook film noir grammar, Staudte’s film has aged no more than its archetypal Hollywood contemporaries. In complex ways, The Murderers are Among Us deals with light and shade, the fine line between holding fast to your sense of empowerment in the face of adversity, and tipping over into a vortex of self-annihilation.
This is never more obvious than in the scene where Mertens is pulled back from the verge of unleashing his wrath on Brueckner by the frantic cries of a mother in search of a doctor to tend to her ailing daughter. Mertens relieves the girl’s suffering, saving her and possibly himself as well.
The haunted Dr. Mertens (Ernst Wilhelm Borchert)
Yes, the burgeoning love between Mertens and Susanne feels somewhat forced, but as the necessary agent of his salvation it’s easy to overlook the stammering progress of their union and the unlikely leap it takes half way through the film. Both actors are magnificent with the baleful Borchert a powerhouse as the distraught doctor whose moral reconfiguration began in the wake of the war’s first real outbreak; in his eyes, the conquests of science started to lose all definition, reduced to superfluous oars against the tide of battle.
The beautiful Knef, as a rich symbolic representation of the purity capable of surviving any heinous attempts at dehumanisation, provides wonderful contrast, whilst Paulsen is chilling as the insidious Brueckner.
Staudte’s film was the country's first after the war and the first from DEFA, East Germany's state-run production company. As well as authenticating the devastating social implications on both a personal and broader level, it stands the test of time as a riveting, heavily stylized artistic statement.
Despite the brief running time, Staudte's screenplay allows for interesting moments that reveal more startling contrasts amongst survivors; in the same apartment building, a gentle old man patiently waits for a letter from his son that may never come, whilst a charatan astrologist proclaims scientific means of predicting the future for the helplessly gullible.
Haunting use is made of the bombed remains of the city with its overwhelming mounds of broken rubble. Negotiating between them and the soiled remains of the ravaged apartment building, Staudte and his two cinematographers offer a wealth of arresting imagery, before finally, intimate, moving affirmation of the human spirit from the darkest days of this divided country and its freshly opened wounds.
The Murderers are Among Us screens at ACMI (the Australian Centre for the Moving Image) in Melbourne on October 22 and 25 as part of the Focus on East German Cinema retrospective.
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Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Comment by Anonymous
Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic
Brilliant stuff.
Don't know Anon, I doubt it, you may have to track down the DVD which has been released overseas and hopefully here soon too.
Comment by Anonymous
Comment by Anonymous