Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 1966
Born in '45
Buy Born in '45 now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
'Born in '45' is a 1966 East German drama film directed by Jrgen Bttcher. It was screened in the Berlinale Classics section of the 65th Berlin International Film Festival.
Cast
* Monika Hildebrand as Lisa
* Rolf Rmer as Alfred
* Paul Eichbaum as Mogul
* Holger Mahlich as Hans
* Gesine Rosenberg as Rita
* Walter Stolp as Kaderleiter
* Werner Kanitz as Napoleon
* Ingo Koster as Heinz
* Anita Okon as Sylvi
* Ruth Kommerell as Mutter
* Richard Ruckheim as Opa
Plot
Alfred ("Al"), an auto mechanic and Lisa ("Li"), a pediatric nurse are a young married couple living in East Berlin during the summer of 1965. Both feel that their relationship is unfulfilling and arrange to get a divorce. While Li dutifully continues her work, Al chaffs under the on-the-job demands of his supervisors. Longing to escape the life-long drudgery his parents endured, he takes a short vacation, briefly rooms with his former motorcycle buddies, and finally moves in with his mother. Al forms a close friendship with the 70-year-old Mogul, a volunteer with the local residential housing commission who is sympathetic to the youngster's personal difficulties. Al's idleness leads to sheer boredom and he returns to his job. Socialist party administrators are troubled by his undisguised disaffection, labeling him a social "skeptic." The plant's political cadre take steps to correct his behavior on and off the job.Reinhardt, 2011: This plot summary is based partially on Reinhardts review of the filmBerlinale, 2015: Summary based partially on Berlinale source.
Production
Regarded primarily as a documentary filmmaker, director Bttchers 'Born in 45' is the only narrative feature film in his 'ourve'.Berlinale, 2015: He was a contract documentarian for Film-Aktiengesellschaft until 1991; his only narrative film [is] JAHRGANG 45 [Born in 45].
Film critic Bernd Reinhardt notes that Bttcher had always wanted to direct features and regarded his documentary work in German Democratic Republic at the beginning of his career as a visual education.Reinhardt, 2011
Made during the administration of Erich Honecker, 'Born in 45' was suppressed before its release when German Democratic Republic cultural apparatchiks, deemed it a misrepresentation of the East German working classes.Berlinale, 2015: East Germanys cultural apparatchiks felt the film glorified the marginalized [disaffected youth] and halted Bttchers work on it in 1966; the film was not shown publicly until 1990. With the fall of the GDR and the Honecker regime in 1990, the film received its world premiere at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival.Reinhardt, 2011: Jrgen Bttchers love story Born in 45 was banned before its completion. The film received its world premiere only after Honeckers departure and the collapse of the GDR.
Theme
Bttcher offers a sympathetic portrayal of dissafected working-class youth at odds with the conformity demanded by post-Stalinist era officials in the GDR of the 1960s, a tale of the yearning for a different life.Berlinale, 2015 Film critic Bernd Reinhardt writes:
Style
'Born in 45' owes its stylistic elements to post-war Italian neorealism, ...heavily influenced by 1950s Italian neo-realists,Berliale, 2015 and conveying a tender affection for adolescents, a feeling for the fragility of their emotions, such as one sometimes finds in the films of Vittorio De Sica [and] Luchino Visconti...Reinhardt, 2011: The movie is full of allusionsfor example, to a song penned by the social critic-songwriter, Wolf Biermann (he was banned from performing), a caged leopard restlessly pacing back and forth behind bars, a hummingbird hanging in the air...
Footnotes
Sources
*Berlinale. 2015. 'Jahrgang 45 (Born in45).' http://www.berlinale.de/en/archive/jahresarchive/2015/02_programm_2015/02_filmdatenblatt_2015_201520175.html#tab=video25
*Reinhardt, Bernd. 2011. 'Some cinematic landmarks of the 1960s in Stalinist East Germany'. World Socialist Web Site. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2011/08/cine-a03.html
Buy Born in '45 now from Amazon
<-- Return to movies from 1966