'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria

such a way that the two characters appear to converse with one another. Lene asks the
boy how to get to the Halensee district of Berlin. With precocious confidence he explains
which bus to take. When Lene asks where his family is, he answers that they have
disappeared and that he has been looking for them for six weeks. The boy then turns and,
under the weight of his heavy backpack, walks away from the camera into the ruined
cityscape of Berlin.
In this sequence, the documentary footage depicts the rubble of Berlin and lends
historical authenticity to the fictional shots. Moreover, this sequence illustrates the extent
to which the public and private realms of experience are intermeshed. The „public‟
forces of war and politics have disrupted the „private‟ life of this boy, separating his
family and forcing him to leave his home. As McCormick explains:
The boy, whose lonely search for his family was thus preserved for a few
moments in some rare documentary footage has long since disappeared from
history; the moments, however, are precious for their poignant illustration of the
war‟s disruption of the family, its intrusion into the personal experience of those
members of the civilian population normally most sheltered from public life.
(Politics 192-193)
McCormick goes on to suggest that because the boy‟s search has been recorded
onto documentary footage, it has become part of the public record of war (Politics 193).
He also notes that it is interesting that it is to this highly personal moment of the public
historical record that Sanders-Brahms has sutured her mother‟s story most tightly. Like
the boy, Lene has been forced out of her home, is searching for relatives, and is required
to develop new skills never required of her before (Politics 193). Thus, through this
juxtaposition of fictional and documentary scenes Sanders-Brahms encourages the viewer
to feel empathy for both Lene‟s and the boy‟s personal plights. The solitary unknown
boy becomes representative of countless other children whose families were torn asunder
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