Berlin Is in Germany

If you want to see a film that reflects, without sentimentality or prejudice, the period following the fall of the wall and German unification, then you should take at look at Hannes Stöhr’s Berlin Is in Germany. Picture a man who has just spent eleven years in jail, who upon his release from a Brandenburg prison experiences a completely different world than before. He finds that nothing is the same, that the totalitarian regime has been transformed into a democracy. Back in GDR times, Martin Schulz (Jörg Schüttauf, in a fine performance) had accidentally killed a snooping house supervisor in a fit of anger ­ consequently, in 1989, he was sentenced for murder to a long prison term. Later, however, under German federal law, the charge was changed to manslaughter ­ and his sentence accordingly reduced.

       The film opens with Martin Schulz leaving prison with his TV set in hand, the only thing he owns and the only source of information he had about the radical changes outside. In the meantime, his wife Manuela (warmly played by Julia Jäger) has found a new companion, a Wessi teacher from southern Germany. To make things more complicated, Martin and Manuela had a son together ­ whom Martin has never seen. Not sure where to begin, the ex-jailbird checks into a dingy hotel, watches TV, and tries to gather the courage he needs to start a new life. Here Stöhr introduces a note of light irony: when Martin contacts his likeable parole helper (Carmen-Maja Antoni), she explains in a tragicomical exchange how things are in the West and what he has to do to fit in. But all that’s really on Martin’s mind is how to resolve the delicate family situation. And here, again, the initial meeting of father and son at the door of the mother’s apartment (»strangers aren’t allowed in«) is more than enough to win our sympathy, and when the dialogue heard at the couple’s party in the Schöner-Wohnen-Wohnung of his ex-wife intermingles with Martin’s laconic Ossi lingo, it leads to some absurd moments that have to be seen to be fully appreciated: »What’s this I’m eating?« ­ »Paella.« ­ »Not bad.«

       Indeed, the whole film is a kind of East-West puzzle, one that shows what the Wende was really like, and it does it better than most documentaries on the period. For not only was it difficult for some in the East to fit in, but also few in the West understood exactly why there was such an emotional let-down by those who had simply expected something entirely different. For Martin Schulz, the ex-convict, it’s the little things that prick his soul ­ like making a paper-plane out of a worthless GDR-100-Mark bill, or trying to figure out how an automat at an S-Bahn station works. Florian Hofmeister’s camera captures the reality of Berlin, a big city on the move, one that cares little for those left behind. In his prolonged shots of streetcars, trains, taxis, U- and S-Bahn stations, we can feel in our bones the highs and lows of Martin’s search to find himself. When one realizes that this was Hannes Stöhr's diploma film at the Berlin Film and TV Academy, then all praise to a young director for his handling of theme and actors. It was not at all surprising that Berlin Is in Germany was awarded the Audience Prize at last year’s Berlinale. Indeed, this the best film I’ve seen on the bittersweet times of the Wende ­ when the Berlin wall fell and Germany was united again.

Dorothea Paschen