The Murderers Are Among Us (Die Mörder sind unter uns) September 27, 2006

The Murderers Are Among Us (Die Mörder sind unter uns)

Directed by Wolfgang Staudte
East Germany 1946, 35mm, b/w, 87 min.
With Hildegarde Knef, Ernst Wilhelm Borchert, Arno Paulsen
German with English subtitles

The first feature film to issue from a shell-shocked nation after the war, The Murderers Are Among Us gained recognition for its expressionistic shadows, which evoked Weimar Germany’s “haunted screen,” and for its documentary verisimilitude, which echoed neorealism’s exploration of postwar spaces. Set in Berlin, former capital of the German Reich but now reduced to mounds of rubble, the film focuses on the struggles of the city’s desperate and cynical survivors. In portraying a country shattered by bombs and shackled with guilt, Staudte delivers a powerful indictment of an unreconciled past.

Official Website: http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/2006fall/new_german.html#murderers