From the silent movie epic “Metropolis” (1927) and “Pandora’s Box” (1929) to the 2007 Academy Award winning drama “The Lives of Others,” German movies have always had an important place in the world of cinema. Filmmakers like Fritz Lang and Leni Riefenstahl are notable names in the film fraternity, their works setting an example to novices and veterans in the film industry.
The big names have created history. But simultaneously, they have carved a path for a new wave of small budget and independent cinema.
An article in The New York Times by Dennis Lim titled “A German Wave, Focused on Today” spotlights on Christian Petzold, a German filmmaker, and his movies which deals with issues such as a family’s secretive escape from Portugal to Germany while trying to start a new life in Brazil in “The State I Am In” (2000) to his latest release “Jerichow,” which deals with the story of a veteran who works for a Turkish man and strikes an affair with his wife.
“Jerichow” grew out of a conversation between Mr. Petzold and his regular collaborator, the filmmaker Harun Farocki. While shooting Mr. Petzold’s previous feature, “Yella” (2007), partly set in Wittenberge, an industrial town in the east, the two men came across huge abandoned factories, and the talk turned to labor and class conflicts.
“American history is full of struggles of workers against owners, and I was asking why that isn’t reflected in American movies,” Mr. Petzold said. “Harun said, “The Postman Always Rings Twice’ is the American class-struggle movie. And I liked the idea that American cinema often deals with politics on the micro level.”
He could be describing the approach of his own films: compact, methodical dramas that bring a steely focus to the tensions and contradictions of a reunified Germany, as they reverberate in everyday life.
Here is LA Weekly’s Q&A titled “Uneasy Riders: Christian Petzold’s Postindustrilaist Road Movies,” which talks about “Jerichow.”
