"Kuhle Wampe" was shown in America under the title "Wither Germany?" and was one of the last German films which embraced a utilitarian viewpoint. It was a true free lance film with thousands of members of such leftist groups as Labor Sports Union, Worker's Theatre Unit and Worker's Chorus of Greater Berlin volunteering for the crowd scenes. Bertolt Brecht did the script, Hans Eisler composed the music but the filming (Slatan Dudow directed) was forever running into difficulties because of the overt Communistic grounds the film took. It was banned because of it's negative depiction of the law, religion and morals and was a very bleak film.
Unemployment is rife and Anni (Hertha Thiele) is the only person in her family who has a job. Father is embittered and, remembering a time when jobs were plentiful, clings to the belief that hard work and politeness are the things employers are looking for. Mother has only old fashioned proverbs which adorn her kitchen. The son commits suicide (taking care to remove his wristwatch which the family could probably sell) and an elderly neighbour comments "one unemployed less"!! - but the family are too despondent to care.
They are then evicted and move to "Kuhle Wampe", Germany's oldest weekend colony which as the title said, in 1931, had 100s of people living there in tents and shacks. Anni had been told of it by her lover Fritz but when she becomes pregnant and her family insist on an engagement - Fritz's selfish nature is revealed. He doesn't want to be tied down so Anni moves back into town with her friend Gerda. There are some symbolic scenes - Anni's parents are discussing Mata Hari in all her lurid detail, the high fees she commanded for her favours while in the background are pictures of bread, milk and meat, for sale at the same price as an evening with Mata Hari.
The last part of the film shows Gerda and Anni's involvement with the Red Games - this has a very hopeful look. It is the young and the strong who are going to bring about change "the people who will fix the world are those who don't like it". It doesn't have a lot of hope in workers as a whole - the older people are shown as set in their ways, clinging to old fashioned ideals. The engagement party (where did the money come from for all that food and beer) shows the drunken carousing of the older generation - when Anni asks her parents to go back with her to the city, they refuse and actually give solace to Fritz!! Later when Anni is reunited with Fritz during the games, she finds he has lost his job and the final sequence takes place on a train with an in-depth economic discussion between the youthful workers and the bourgeois. Whenever Anni's group try to talk up the revolution - "think hard, forward, never relax", their opponents turn nationalistic and talk generalities. There is a feeling that Anni and Fritz may be reconciled but Anni is determined not to be apart of the morass that engulfs society.
In real life Hertha Thiele was a radical who refused requests from Goebbels to direct National Socialist propaganda.
Highly Recommended.
Unemployment is rife and Anni (Hertha Thiele) is the only person in her family who has a job. Father is embittered and, remembering a time when jobs were plentiful, clings to the belief that hard work and politeness are the things employers are looking for. Mother has only old fashioned proverbs which adorn her kitchen. The son commits suicide (taking care to remove his wristwatch which the family could probably sell) and an elderly neighbour comments "one unemployed less"!! - but the family are too despondent to care.
They are then evicted and move to "Kuhle Wampe", Germany's oldest weekend colony which as the title said, in 1931, had 100s of people living there in tents and shacks. Anni had been told of it by her lover Fritz but when she becomes pregnant and her family insist on an engagement - Fritz's selfish nature is revealed. He doesn't want to be tied down so Anni moves back into town with her friend Gerda. There are some symbolic scenes - Anni's parents are discussing Mata Hari in all her lurid detail, the high fees she commanded for her favours while in the background are pictures of bread, milk and meat, for sale at the same price as an evening with Mata Hari.
The last part of the film shows Gerda and Anni's involvement with the Red Games - this has a very hopeful look. It is the young and the strong who are going to bring about change "the people who will fix the world are those who don't like it". It doesn't have a lot of hope in workers as a whole - the older people are shown as set in their ways, clinging to old fashioned ideals. The engagement party (where did the money come from for all that food and beer) shows the drunken carousing of the older generation - when Anni asks her parents to go back with her to the city, they refuse and actually give solace to Fritz!! Later when Anni is reunited with Fritz during the games, she finds he has lost his job and the final sequence takes place on a train with an in-depth economic discussion between the youthful workers and the bourgeois. Whenever Anni's group try to talk up the revolution - "think hard, forward, never relax", their opponents turn nationalistic and talk generalities. There is a feeling that Anni and Fritz may be reconciled but Anni is determined not to be apart of the morass that engulfs society.
In real life Hertha Thiele was a radical who refused requests from Goebbels to direct National Socialist propaganda.
Highly Recommended.