GERMAN FILM FESTIVAL, NOV 16 - 19, 2007

IGNFA MOVIE CLUB
in association with
GOETHE INSTITUTE

MAX MUELLER BHAVAN, KOLKATA
proudly presents

GERMAN FILM FESTIVAL
NOV 17 – 18, 2007

SCREENING SCHEDULE

17.11.07

3.00 p.m The Devil's General (Des Teufels General)/Dir: Helmut Käutner/115 mins / 1955

5.00 p.m Waller's Last Trip (Wallers letzter Gang)/Dir: Christian Wagner/100 mins/1988

18.11.07

3.00 p.m M-A City in Search for a Murderer (M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder)/Dir: Fritz Lang/98 mins/1931

5.00 p.m The Ninth Day (Der neunte Tag)/Dir: Volker Schlöndorff/97 mins/2004

PREVIEWS

The Devil's General (Des Teufels General)

Director: Helmut Käutner, b/w, 115 min., 1955

Helmut Käutner's film is an adaptation of a play by Carl Zuckmayer, who based his character of Harras, a general in the Luftwaffe, on a real-life pilot, the aviation pioneer Ernst Udet. In a vintage performance by Curd Jürgens, General Harras is portrayed as a stubborn, power-driven officer, vain, irreverent to the point of recklessness and a womanizer. During the course of WW2 in 1941, and following certain key experiences, he increasingly develops an inner distance from Hitler's regime. He is arrested, then released on the condition that he root out the saboteurs responsible for a series of fighter plane crashes. Harras refuses to denounce the perpetrators, instead plunging to his death in a plane that has been tampered with.

Waller's Last Trip (Wallers letzter Gang)

Director: Christian Wagner, colour, 100 min., 1988

Waller, an old track inspector, reminisces on his life, as he walks his section of track for the last time. "His" railway line in an idyllic valley in Allgäu is to be closed. Waller sets off on his last inspection tour without saying a word. His life has been closely associated with the history of this railway line. As his steps measure the rails and sleepers, the memories of the past come back to him, and his walk along the line becomes a walk back through the years.
Waller sees scenes from his childhood in the twenties, then of his first job as a track inspector. In his memory he once again says goodbye to his best friend, who went to war in 1941 and never came back again. Two years later Waller has to go to the front himself, because he helped Angelika, daughter of a manufacturer, to illegally move some flour. After the war Waller falls in love with Angelika, but her father will never agree to the marriage.
The fascination of this walk lies in the dreamy narrative method used by the young director, who alternates effortlessly and powerfully between the present (in colour) and the past (in black and white) of this man.

M – A City in Search for a Murderer (M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder)

Director: Fritz Lang, b/w, 98 min., 1931

A child-murderer threatens the serene life in Berlin and alarms the population. The crooks are hindered in their profitable dealings by the police investigations. Therefore parallel to the law and order maintaining forces the organized criminal underworld goes in search of the pathologic murderer. And in fact, the crooks manage to capture him, putting him before an underworld court, which sentences him to death. However, before the murderer is executed, the police appears and arrests him "in the name of law". - The revolutionary montage, which is still unrivalled today, is characterized by the consistent separation of sight and sound. Lang primarily concentrates on dialogues and dramatically necessary sounds (the whistled Grieg tune) which propel the action forwards or indirectly continue the story.

The Ninth Day (Der neunte Tag)

Director: Volker Schlöndorff, colour, 97 min., 2004

In February 1942, the Luxembourgian priest Henri Kremer was granted nine days’ leave from the concentration camp where he was imprisoned. The Gestapo officer Gebhardt confronted him with a life-or-death decision: Kremer was asked to betray his own convictions by persuading his national church to collaborate with the National Socialists. If he failed to do so, not only he, but also his family and his imprisoned co-brethren would be facing imminent death. For nine days, on each of which he had brilliant rhetorical and intellectual duels with the Gestapo officer, Kremer grappled with this insoluble moral conflict that defied notions of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. The resultant film, built around extracts from the priest Jean Bernard’s diary, is a vivid and stirring specimen of polished dialogue and excellent acting that examines the eternal issue of individual responsibility.