If Not Us, Who?
Directed by Andres Veiel
Written by Andres Veiel and Gerd Koenen
with August Diehl, Lena Lauzemis, Alexander Fehling
2011
The cultural trauma of Nazism and the Second World War has been repeatedly articulated in German cinema for decades. Andres Veiel’s debut feature is preoccupied with a generation striving to define itself in the wake of its immediate past, a context that frames a doomed, abusive romance between its two protagonists.
To start with, I have to say that in order to fully ‘get’ this film, you need to be better versed in German literature than I am, or at least have a better general knowledge of the whole 1968 thing. The leading character, Bernward Vesper (August Diehl), is the real-life author of a generation-defining book in German called The Journey, a book that I’d never heard of. Just to show I don’t consider my knowledge of literature to be definitive, I checked Wikipedia and neither the book nor Vesper himself have an English page to themselves (though they do in German – see, I’m thorough) and, sorry to be so shallow, but that’s a fairly decent acid test of public awareness. There is also frequent discussion of various German authors; many of whom I actually recognised, but who will mean a lot more in that country’s own complicated past than I can really relate to.
Having said that, my ignorance of German culture didn’t spoil the film for me, because all the literary dissemination is solidly grounded in the young characters’ attempts at coming to terms with the Germany of their parents’ generation. Bernward’s father, Will Vesper (who does have an English-language Wikipedia page), was also an author, and one responsible for helping to create the twentieth-century blood myths that Hitler’s Aryan ideal depended on. During the film’s first half we see Bernward attempting to fulfill his father’s last wish and have his work republished. This attempt at revisionism is soon abandoned as hopeless, and the younger Vesper’s desire to establish a new tradition for the postwar years takes over. The film is filled with people trying to create a better world around them, through producing their own reality, or through editing the past’s.
Although it revolves around romance, the film is by no means romantic in outlook; it is to its credit that none of the characters are idealised or placed on a pedestal as ‘the voice of a generation’ or any such stuff. At best they’re sympathetic, but mainly just confused or misguided. The Red Army Faction, of which one of the main characters, Gudrun Ensslin (Lena Lauzemis), was a founding member, are depicted as rather foolish, elitist, and given to spouting glib sound bites as opposed to any solid political debate. Veiel gives the one note of quiet heroism to a prison warden who accepts her small place in society and merely tries to improve things within her reach.
This is an intelligent film, but if you’re not familiar already I’d recommend reading a bit about Vesper and the Baader-Meinhof Group before you see it, as I’m sure you’d get far more out of it. I got a bit bored towards the end because I didn’t feel it was really taking me anywhere, and that I was just watching lives fall apart – it might have been different if I’d understood we were waiting on Vesper’s magnum opus. I guess my experience was what watching Nowhere Boy would be like if you didn’t know John Lennon formed The Beatles.
Tom
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