Publication Title

Cinema and Social Change in Germany and Austria

Document Type

Book Chapter - Restricted Access, Campus/Bates Community

Department or Program

German and Russian Studies

Publication Date

8-2012

Abstract

This chapter explores images of German-Polish relationships in the German films of the early 2000s that depict social life in the areas close to the German-Polish border (e.g. Frankfurt an der Oder in Brandenburg or the eastern part of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern). The proximity of the border and the more intense contacts between Germans and Poles resulting from increased cross-border traffic play an important role in the filmic representations of life in the states of the former GDR. Rapid economic and social changes in the Eastern part of Germany brought about questions about the attitude toward the incomers from Poland in the competitive conditions of the free-market economy. Also, the intensified contacts with Poles forced the local population to re-evaluate national stereotypes popular in the Western part of Germany that depict Poles as car thieves, illegal workers, or prostitutes.

The chapter concentrates on German movies produced in the last decade that pose, directly or indirectly, questions about the problematic relationships between Germans and Poles. These movies place the main personal conflicts of the narrative against the background of a society in change or build the main narrative tension around the confrontation with an Other that manifests itself in the landscapes of Poland, in Polish language and social structures, and in the alluring yet threatening sexual appeal of foreigners. The movies included in the project are Vergiss Amerika by Vanessa Joop (2000), Herz im Kopf by Michael Gutmann (2001), Halbe Treppe by Andreas Dresen (2002), Klassenfahrt by Henner Winckler (2002), Lichter by Hans-Christian Schmid (2003), Befreite Zone by Norbert Baumgarten (2003), Milchwald by Christoph Hochhäusler (2003), and Schröders wunderbare Welt by Michael Schorr (2006).

The chapter investigates how Poles and their country are perceived in these and other contemporary German films (i.e. to ask the question to what extent the national stereotypes about Polish people influence the construction of characters in the movies). It also explores the narrative functions of the geographical border and describes the social consequences of the act of border crossing. The framework for the project is provided by theories of Border Studies that, transferred from the US-Mexican into the European context, help address the question of what the German-Polish borderlands portend for the development of a multicultural society: as portrayed in contemporary German cinema, is the border area the true link between Western and Eastern Europe (like "Slubfurt", the proclaimed merging of German Frankfurt an der Oder and Polish Słubice) or is it a territory infiltrated by foreigners who put the national community in danger?

Comments

Original version is available from the publisher at: https://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Books/C/Cinema-and-Social-Change-in-Germany-and-Austria

Copyright Note

This is the author's version of the work. This publication appears in Bates College's institutional repository by permission of the copyright owner for personal use, not for redistribution.

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