'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria

ombings terrorized civilian populations. While the documentary shots of the bombing
are distanced, impersonal, and mechanistic, the enacted scenes are extremely immediate,
personal, and visceral. The fictional scenes evoke in the viewer fear for the fate of the
shelter occupants and empathy for their terrifying situation. In particular, they increase
the viewer‟s emotional identification with Lene‟s struggle to bring herself and her
daughter through the war alive. In contrast, the radio broadcasts in this sequence function
ironically. The soldiers on the broadcast sing “Stille Nacht,” and when the air raid siren
begins to wail, the viewer realizes it will be anything but a silent night for Lene and
Anna. This juxtaposition also highlights the disparate types of terrifying experiences
soldiers had on the front to those civilians experienced in the air raid shelters. Also, in
the radio broadcast Hitler claims that the enemy, through surprise attacks, has provoked
his government to engage in total war. Meanwhile, the enacted scenes depict a total war
being waged on the German people by this same enemy. The irony in this scene stems
from the fact that most viewers recognize that it was Hitler‟s „surprise invasions‟ into
sovereign nations such as Poland that began the Second World War. Moreover, Hitler‟s
decree that Germans shall no longer speak of lost comforts is ironically juxtaposed with
images of civilians in the most uncomfortable of situations. Thus, Sanders-Brahms
combines enacted scenes, documentary footage, and radio broadcasts in an ironic critique
of Nazi propaganda and Hitler‟s aggressive expansionism.
Following the air raid shelter scene, the third scene that combines archival and
enacted scenes occurs in the sequence when Lene and Anna arrive on foot in Berlin.
Fictional scenes of Lene are cross cut with documentary footage of a young boy
surrounded by ruins interviewed in Berlin at the end of the war. The scene is edited in
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