Wrack and Ruin : The Rubble Film At Defa │ Eureka Entertainment
Courtesy of Eureka Entertainment
by JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
The cinema’s fascination with the Second World War seems to be endless, but the film I saw last week was unlike any other I have ever seen before. As part of a new package from Eureka Entertainment, under the umbrella title of ‘Wrack and Ruin’ presented in a hardbound box set, the release includes five films from the DEFA Studio, available on Blu-Ray in the UK for the first time. I opted to sample first Somewhere in Berlin, which was shot in the ruins of the German city in 1946 in the Soviet Occupation zone. The mandate was to meditate on the “literal and figurative wreckage left behind by the Third Reich.” Here, in Somewhere in Berlin, the focus is on a group of young boys whose playground is the remains of the streets that their parents once called home. With many of the father figures either dead or in prisoner-of-war camps, the boys are allowed to run rampant, drawing on their own camaraderie to override any feelings of devastation left by the Allied bombing. For them, war is still a game – as it always has been with children – as one of their number proclaims, “war is the best game!”
In light of John Boorman’s Golden Globe-winning film Hope and Glory, set largely in the ruins of London during the Second World War, Somewhere in Berlin is a fascinating counterpoint. Hope and Glory also looked at the war through the eyes of a child, Billy, but obviously through the perspective of an English child. What is particularly interesting about the so-called “rubble films” made by the DEFA Studio, whose directive was to aid in the de-Nazification of Germany, is the backdrop, or rather the forefront. Filmmakers will shoot where they can, preserving the world around them, and this playhouse of wreckage and urban decay is the real thing, an endless city-wide stage of defeat. Some of the best films about the Second World War have been told through the eyes of children, such as René Clément’s Forbidden Games, Elem Klimov’s Come and See and Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun, and I have to say I was surprised how affecting I found Somewhere in Berlin to be. With very little music, and a little rough around the edges, the film is nevertheless bound together by a very strong narrative and some striking, heartbreaking scenes, directed by the Berlin-born Gerhard Lamprecht. Lamprecht directed 63 films between 1920 and 1958 and here has elicited excellent performances from his young cast, as well as from the German veteran Hans Leibelt who serves as the story’s moral compass. As he says, sagely, “Times change, children don’t.”
The other films in the box set include The Murderers Are Among Us, the first film produced in post-war Germany, the story of the survivor of a concentration camp who returns to her Berlin apartment to find a stranger living there. The survivor Susanne is played by a 20-year-old Hildegard Knef, who went on to become a Hollywood star and, under the meticulous direction of Wolfgang Staudte, the film bridges the gap between German expressionism and Italian neo-realism. I would also like to point out the excellent lighting (and framing) of the cinematographer Friedl Behn-Grund, who had the misfortune – a year earlier – to lose a leg on the very last day of the Second World War. Then there’s Police Raid set in the world of Berlin’s black marketeering; The Marriage in the Shadows about an actor and his Jewish wife at the mercy of the Third Reich; and, finally, The Blum Affair about the murder trial of a Jewish industrialist. On top of all this is the swathe of bonus material, including an erudite summary of the Rubble Cinema and the founding of DEFA from Claire Knight and a fascinating 1946 documentary on the rebuilding of Berlin; along with all the insightful and learned audio commentaries and so much more. For anybody interested in cinema, or indeed German history, this really is the gift that keeps on giving. An eye-opening education.
Eureka Entertainment’s release of ‘Wrack and Ruin : The Rubble Film At Defa’ is now available on Blu-ray
EUREKA ENTERTAINMENT is the leading independent distributor of classic silent/early films in the UK. In 2004, Eureka! established the award winning Masters of Cinema Series, a specially curated director-led Blu-ray and DVD collection of classic and world cinema using the finest available materials for home viewing. In 2014, Eureka! established Eureka! Classics intended to highlight a broader selection of classic and cult cinema, and in 2017, Eureka! established Montage Pictures, a label celebrating ground-breaking and thought-provoking world cinema from new and upcoming directors.
