Or, “Sean Gives Me Hell For Writing Another T00-Clever Title.”
Our tour Around the World in Twenty Films lands us in Germany this time around, and we begin with The Lives of Others, a 2006 drama which is set in Communist East Germany in (go figure) 1984. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck wrote and makes his directorial debut with this film. Sebastian Koch plays an East German playwright who winds up under government scrutiny not because of his political views, but because his girlfriend doesn’t want to date the Minister of Culture. There are lots of twist and turns in this film, and a couple of surprises besides, but while the ending has a little bit of a bleak feel, there’s also a lot of hope attached to it.
From there we move on to The Baader-Meinhof Complex, from 2008. This film, directed by Uli Edel, takes us on a ten-year journey as we follow the true-story activities of a terrorist group that had the political world of West Germany tied up in knots. As the group goes from simply causing damage to intentionally killing people, the pressure ratchets up to break the back of this group. Do they succeed? Go watch the film, or read a book. (You know there’s an expectation that you’ve seen the film before listening to the episode, right?) (Not that it matters, who are we to tell you what to do?) (Either way, we won’t tell.)
Our deep-dive into this film will settle a few mysteries except for the title. So be prepared to live with that.
COMING ATTRACTIONS:
In Episode 56 we begin studying films from different countries rather than looking at same-nation pairs. We start with Exotica, a 1994 Canadian film written and directed by Atom Egoyan, and then we check out The Edge of Paradise, a German-Turkish film from 2007 with a non-linear storyline. Don’t worry; you’ll be able to follow it just fine.