'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria

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connection with the politics of the “Third Reich.” An extreme close-up of the flag shows it covered in a swarm of black flies, which suggests the infestation of Germany by Nazism. 65 The flag cannot be contained within the frame of the camera, suggesting that the effects of National Socialism extend well beyond the borders of the war generation‟s life into the existence of Sanders-Brahms‟ generation (Kosta 139). Moreover, during my interview with Sanders-Brahms, she stated that “…the first image of the film is a reflection, it is the reflection of a swastika in the dark water. So in a way, this is a means of a film image showing that this [film] is a reflection in the double sense of the word” (Reed 141). She goes on to say that, “[t]he reflection is a reflection of a memory. It‟s not just the memory itself, [… but] it is a reflected memory, that is to say, the memory is shown to make you think about it, to analyze it” (142). Hence, through the film image of the Nazi flag reflected in the lake, Sanders-Brahms indicates that the greater part of her film is based on a refracted or indirect memory of mother‟s war and post-war experiences. Sanders-Brahms, the filmmaker, would not have directly experienced the events in the film that happened before her birth nor would she have remembered what happened during her very early childhood. Rather, she would have created postmemories of these events through an imaginative investment in the stories passed on to her by her mother. Thus, her film is a personal reflection on a postmemory of her mother‟s experience and she hopes that it might trigger analysis and reflection in the viewer. 65 In an interview with Peter Brunette in 1990, Sanders-Brahms states that she intentionally used the image of the flies crawling over the flag to establish the historical and political context of her film. Moreover, she explains that the image was serendipitous, stating: “An image like that can‟t be planned. When we shot that scene it was a hot summer night and all the flies were sitting on the flag, and I asked them to shoot it that way. I felt it was a wonderful image of the historical and political situation. It reflects so much. It would have been very difficult to construct it, you know, to have 2,000 flies at the same time, making honey on the flag. I‟d like to take credit for it, but it was just given to me” (Brunette 41). 91
Further, the absence or presence at two different points of the film of the iconographic postmemory of Hitler‟s image is significant. When Hans and Lene undress each other for the first time on their wedding night, Lene comments: “Wenigstens [gibt es] kein Bild vom Führer überm Bett” (Sanders-Brahms, Film-Erzählung 36). 66 Lene‟s comment regarding the absence of Hitler‟s image in the family home suggests that she harbours the false illusion that she and Hans will be able to shelter themselves from the historical and political realities of the era by concerning themselves with their individual happiness. Later in the film, a group portrait of Hitler, Goebbels, and Göring is shown hanging in the salon of the Berlin apartment belonging to Lene‟s wealthy uncle, Bertrand. 67 When Hans visits his family at this apartment on leave from the army, he is visually linked to the portrait. Feeling excluded from Lene and Anna‟s close mother- daughter relationship, he stands alone beside the fireplace over which the group portrait hangs. He announces to Lene, who is off-screen, that German soldiers will fight unto death, echoing the Nazi rhetoric as he states, “Siegen oder untergehen, das ist des deutschen Menschen würdig” (Sanders-Brahms, Film-Erzählung 68). 68 Hans‟ pronouncement and his position in front of the portrait of the Nazi leaders clearly align him with Nazi ideology and military order. Hence, in this scene, Sanders-Brahms effectively combines the portrait of Hitler, a postmemory of the Nazi era, with dialogue and mise-en-scène to illustrate how deeply the historical and political forces of the era have penetrated into and have disrupted Lene and Hans‟ marital relationship. The naïve belief Lene held in the earlier scene that private happiness is separate from history and 66 “At least there is no picture of the Führer hanging over the bed” (Sanders-Brahms, Film-Erzählung 36). 67 The presence of the portrait of the Nazi leaders in Bertrand‟s apartment does not seem out of place in that he is an employee of the air transport ministry and thus most certainly would have been a party member. 68 “Victory or destruction, the German people deserve it” (Sanders-Brahms, Film-Erzählung 68). 92
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Storytelling and Survival in the
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Supervisory Committee Dr. Helga Tho
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3.1 Intergenerational Dialogue in D
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I would like to dedicate this thesi
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Sanders-Brahms describes a phenomen
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that Sanders-Brahms uses the fairy
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early 1980s by a wave of historical
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Deutschland, bleiche Mutter. Moreov
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audience. One of the most popular g
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1.1 The Oberhausen Manifesto and Ne
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audiences. This film movement of th
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e beholden to him, for only through
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political events that took place in
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Verdrängten eigentlich gar nicht g
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(Deutschland im Herbst n. pag.). 14
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in drei Jahrzehnten Nachkriegsgesch
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impact West Germans in such a drama
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If German films are to make use of
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1.4 Deutschland, bleiche Mutter as
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story must be hidden as much as pos
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Chapter 2: New Subjectivity and Wes
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Reich” opposes fascism, but who e
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direct and personal confrontation w
Page 47 and 48: context has only become part of the
Page 49 and 50: perpetrators are defined predominan
Page 51 and 52: Thus, Sanders-Brahms creates a coun
Page 53 and 54: In the birth sequence, Sanders-Brah
Page 55 and 56: ombs fall downward from the upper r
Page 57 and 58: narrator‟s sadness at the destruc
Page 59 and 60: essentialize men or women‟s exper
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Page 65 and 66: endurance and stoic acceptance of b
Page 67 and 68: texture which is both social and hi
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Page 71 and 72: y war. A final interesting point of
Page 73 and 74: Maikäfer flieg. dein Vater ist im
Page 75 and 76: Why does Lene sing the Maikäferlie
Page 77 and 78: Beginning with the so-called recons
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Page 81 and 82: a series of forty-one volumes publi
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Page 85 and 86: geworden” (Brecht, Werke 253). 55
Page 87 and 88: Eure Unarmung kann ich mir nicht de
Page 89 and 90: 3.2 Retelling a Grimm Tale: Voice a
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Page 103 and 104: Chapter 4: Three Images of Woman in
Page 105 and 106: Moreover she demonstrates insight a
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Page 117 and 118: Contrastingly, in the middle and la
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Page 129 and 130: 4.4 Summarizing Remarks Sanders-Bra
Page 131 and 132: Chapter 5: Conclusion Mother’s Vo
Page 133 and 134: forced back into the oppressive dep
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Page 139 and 140: evocation of the Holocaust through
Page 141 and 142: Brahms articulates represents an ac
Page 143 and 144: H.S.-B.: Well, one answer to this q
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R.R.: So an example of that would b
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political context of the fictional
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was a wonderful image, like the May
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H.S.-B.: Yes, you‟re right, it‟
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R.R.: Some critics say that she is
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They just appeared during shooting.
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film represent the woman who respon
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R.R.: So, by telling your story, yo
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H.S.-B.: This happened to my mother
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irritated the critics terribly. It
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opening up, but actually, the strug
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---. Brecht on Theater. Ed. and Tra
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Herbst, Philip. Wimmin, Wimps and W
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---. “Gender, Film, and German Hi
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Sander, Helke and Barbara Johr. Eds
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