What you expect to find in a historical documentary? History, surely? Face The Wall of Stephan Weinert is a recording of a group of persons chosen from among the unlucky enough to be caught and jailed thousands for attempting to escape from the front Germany 1989. It is slaughtered, simple, fast, without any unnecessary frills and showcases some eloquent testimonies, thought, and sometimes very moving.
But there is an almost complete absence of what either to establish the context something feels like by chance as an error. Even if you know what was the Berlin wall and what it meant, Face The Wall appears to be 90 minutes of heads talking with behavior - despite their psychic wounds obvious - near alarming swings the apparent naivety.
Weinert subjects were all perfectly normal people at that time - farmers, teachers, students and others - even if their experiences at the hands of the GDR state machines mean that they are clearly is more completely the same. Both are unable to hold a job, still a therapy and advice with a shockingly confessing to admit that he cannot stay in enclosed spaces for shorter periods of time.
They seem to be part infantryman, part haunted by the survivor guilt, struggling to cope with the trauma that concept a series of events did not leave visible scars others may relate to the. The teacher discusses his time in prison, where someone has broken the rules and made screws evil appear finally beaten and raped women by sentenced to life imprisonment in League with the Stasi. Young gay man (while it is not stereotypical remotely, experiences are clearly related to their sexuality) recalled hearing Cree as other convicts slowly went mad constant sleep.
They know that they will never be all rights and that those things which can theoretically be returned are probably in a certain sense, will be a next time. Weinert follows the farmer (who had seized assets) in the fields that it used at work, watching the closing in the farm buildings, empty shells especially now.
It is obvious that nobody could possibly welcome these emotions - many of their monologues camera people carry a thread of bitterness to what looks like shares equal treason (none were particularly radical or overtly politicised) and bureaucratic insanity. Many describe the constant need for self-censor, to avoid discussing even something as innocuous as a television through the wall, where someone could take as a responsible political declaration.
The thing is all these stories are very intimate, perhaps too so. Some of them give a real world beyond the daily life of the interviewees or provide any justification for why they would think as banal and island. There are records of how their growing frustration leads to flee, but few details concrete beyond of what each of them think mentioning needs. Sometimes it makes the search as if their detention has come out of the next day.
Of course, it is difficult to establish how much of their point of view to their subsequent years of freedom. In both cases, their disbelief brings to mind the stereotype of the tourist prisoner taken by evil aliens who shouts "and I am an American citizen!", as someone who was waving a crucifix. Not experienced as they have clearly, it is extremely difficult to judge, but it is impossible to completely get rid of the idea that asking how can this happen when you live in a repressive Communist regime leaves you look like an innocent abroad. Weinert proposes nothing of their situation at the time to mitigate this, simply allow the camera to keep rolling.
Culminating point of this is accompanied by the revelation, the young gay man not only leva records held the Stasi on him, he even met one of the guards who oversaw his imprisonment and demanded an apology. No surprise that he did not get one. This is an excerpt just beautifully stimulated sequences is fascinating and confusing obtuse. The knee-jerk reaction that invites his speech is to ask why on Earth he expected his interrogator - report and Weinert simply gives the spectator something with which set up a response, the simple human thing or the outcome of his trauma or background or anything else.
It bears restating that The Wall is a German production, probably made first for a German audience. Set a value in that filmed Weinert - one interviewee breaks down before the camera, recalling a time where he has finally been Germany West and anyone can stay dry-printaniere at this point should be made of Peter. But the quote from Hegel closes the film ("what experience and history has taught us is that the people and Governments have never learned something of the history" "") suggests an attempt to look at the bigger picture. Seen in this light, Face The Wall could not help but emerged as something of a failure and is very difficult to recommend.
(Face the wall was screened in the 24th Festival Leeds film).
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