'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria

R.R.: Maybe? There are so many different ways to interpret the film. Okay, last
question. You are probably getting tired. Oh, actually, I have two more questions from
my supervisor, but this is the last question from me. Why do you think some West
German critics reacted negatively to the film when it premiered at the Berlinale in 1980?
Why do you think the film had a more positive reception in France, Italy, the USA, and
Japan, Iran, etc.? Do you think it is fair to say that German critics reacted negatively to
the film because you broke a social taboo by dealing with National Socialism through a
personal story?
H.S.-B.: Yes. But on the other hand, several films were made that were personal stories.
But they were personal stories that were more or less about people who had behaved well
during fascism. This is a constant theme…You always show the well-behaved man who
fights against Nazis. And then, of course, there were men‟s stories, mostly men or boys‟
stories. Like for example, Die Brücke [The Bridge] by Bernhard Wicki. And, to me, all
these films did not really convince me because I felt that things were much more
complex. I lived through them as a small child. I understood them as more complex.
What made Germany, Pale Mother to be so well received in France, Italy, Canada, the
United States, and all over the world, actually, India, was the fact that this film, is a very
complex film. It is not just telling a nice story about something in a brutal and horrible
time, but it‟s very complex. I think this complexity that Lene is not a Nazi, but she is not
a fighter against fascism either. Her husband is not a Nazi, but he is also not a fighter
against Nazism. And, at special times, he also uses phrases of the Nazis for himself.
This complexity was seen as something that you shouldn‟t really do in a film. So it
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