2019-10-24 16:53
On October 3, Germany's National Day, the film German Lesson, directed by Christian Schwahof and written by Heide Schwahof, was released in major German theaters. Published in 1968, the author of the film "German Lessons" reflects on the contradiction between due diligence and personal responsibility under Nazi thought, criticizes the Promotion of the German Spirit to the idea of loyalty to duty, which has a considerable influence in the history of German literature, and the film's release on German National Day also once again emphasizes the importance of the novel and its themes.
The story revolves around Sigy Yepsen, his father, a policeman in the North German countryside, and his favorite father's painter friend, Max Nansen. In the juvenile correctional office, the instructor wrote the title of the proposition essay on the blackboard: the joy of due diligence. Juvenile delinquents have dropped their pens, and Sigy Yepson is unable to write in front of the blank paper. As a result, he was put in a single cell and was not allowed to come out without finishing his thesis. However, he was not exhausted, but he was full of thoughts and did not know where to start.
His father, Jens Yepsen, a local policeman in the North German countryside, performed the task assigned by the Nazi authorities to confiscate paintings created by artists with a Jewish background, with communist overtones, neo-objectivist or expressionist styles, collectively known as decadent art, and the painter himself would be punished by law and forbidden to paint.
It was my father's childhood friend, Max Nansen, who was sanctioned. After issuing an injunction to Marx, Yans asked his son Sigy to approach Marx to monitor and report whether the painter had violated the ban. Marx regarded Sigi as his own, and was very willing to teach him how to paint by hand, and Sigi also liked to learn painting from him. Yans arrested Marx after learning about the situation, and the painting was burned. Caught between his father and Marx, the 11-year-old Sigi watched as the painter's career was destroyed, his emotional works confiscated, and his ignorant innocence wanted to protect them in every effort. Sigi hid the torn paintings of Marx and found an abandoned house as a safe haven, where he collaged the remains of the paintings and hung them on the wall as if they were treasures. As more and more paintings were destroyed by his father, so did his "treasure trove". It was as if to atone for his father's actions and to apologize for his inability to disobey his father's orders and to sit back and watch the destruction worsen.
Sigy witnessed his father destroy a rare friendship with his own hands in the name of duty, bringing nightmares to Marx's home. Siji's eldest brother became a deserter and sneaked home with a serious injury, but was denounced by his "dutiful" father to the General Bureau, and was eventually sent to the execution ground, so that his father became the "evil man" of the family. After the war, decadent art arose, Marx was respected as an artist, and his works were greatly praised. The father continued to search Marx's works and inadvertently found his son's safe house. Siggy's secretly hidden memories were burned to the ground by his father, and he became more and more panicked and had to steal Marx's paintings directly. He was eventually arrested for stealing paintings and sent to a re-education through labor facility.
The film uses a lot of cold gray tones to put the audience in the suffocating sense of oppression that has always enveloped Siggie. Forced by respect and fear of his father, Sigi can only steal paintings to protect what he helps destroy, which becomes his duty. The father lived in a conflict between duties and morals, and was not indifferent to the friendships and trust in his family that he had destroyed with his own hands. But responsibility became the value of his life, and due diligence became the meaning of his survival. The whole movie does not have too many lines and exaggerated acting skills, but focuses on portraying the protagonist Sigi. As a young man he witnessed things that were incomprehensible to his age, but he had no right to doubt and could only obey. The warmest scene in the whole movie is that Siggi and Marx are on the seashore, the warm afterglow of the sunset illuminates their faces, and Marx and Siggi capture the short and wonderful moments of the sunset with color. Like the setting sun, this beauty is short-lived and will eventually be swallowed up by the night. The silent natural environment contrasts strongly with the churning inner world, and the pain that follows gradually penetrates the human heart and envelops the entire film.
Fathers are conscientious, and this conscientiousness is twisted and blind. As director Schwarkhov puts it, the deadly toxin of fascism is deeply rooted in human nature, and the tragedies of both families are its victims. Even now, such themes and allegories are not outdated. With the recent rise of anti-Semitism and racial discrimination movements, anti-democratic ideas have also risen in German society, and the director hopes to sound the alarm through the artistic language of the film and evoke the audience's reflection on the status quo.
Editor-in-charge: Zhang Heng
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