Born In ‘45
Picture: C
Sound: C Extras: B- Film: B
When director Jurgen Bottcher made Born In ’45
(1966, the documentary filmmaker and painters only narrative feature film) in
East Germany, he said he was trying to make a film with the spirit and energy
of Milos Forman’s controversial and subversive classics Loves Of A Blonde
and The Fireman’s Ball. Looking
at this banned film on its 40th anniversary, we can say he very much
succeeded. Also borrowing from
post-WWII movements like Italian Neo-Realism and the French New Wave (as the
box accurately states), the film starts out with how two newlyweds are getting
along in life and living in a socialism with all of its promises of a happier,
better future.
However, there is the sexual aspect the propaganda never
addresses and even deep within the most paranoid nation of the East Bloc, the
spirit of the 1960s, Beatles and counterculture has seeped into the culture in
interesting ways and the couple become the launching pad to look at an entire
generation that was being watched closely by the government. Running 94 minutes, the remarkable young
cast pulls off the attitudes and feel of the time as authentic as any of their
counterparts in the West would have been at the time. Besides the story, the country becomes a character and there are
terrific passages of music without dialogue that also further the story
thematically and introspectively.
Banned for almost a quarter century, Born In ’45 holds up
remarkably well and at a time when cinema is at a new low, could not come to
DVD fast enough. Very recommended!
The 1.33 X 1 image was shot in black and white film by
cinematographer Roland Graf, capturing the modernist 1960s even in the
repressive East Germany. Detail is an
issue, but the print is a good one, so maybe only HD playback will really be
able to show this off because full frame on DVDs are not always as good as
widescreen and anamorphically enhanced presentations. This was meant to be narrow-vision, though would also play back
well in 16 X 9/1.78 X 1. Maybe a
PAL-to-NTSC conversion is at the crux of the matter. The Dolby Digital 2.0 German Mono is also a generation down, but
the sound design and choices are superior.
Henry Purcell’s score is a plus.
Extras include newsreel about the film, documentary on forbidden films,
text bio/filmographies, stills, film historian Rolf Richter’s essay on the
film, interview with Graf and documentary Forbidden Films In Retrospect
about East German censorship of the industry at the time. A fine DVD overall.
- Nicholas Sheffo
