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This is an interesting German film released (1991). Germany at the time was undegoing the process of reunification (1989-91). The title is "The Land Beyond the Rainbow" ("Das Land hinter dem Regenbogen"). It was written and directed by Herwig Kipping in 1991 and is much admired in film circles as a harsh but at the same time beautiful attack on the Communist regime in East Germany during the year 1953, the height of the Stalinist repression. The film is highly symbolic and in many places surrealistic. It concerns a fictional small town called Stalina that theoretically worships Stalin and the collectivist economy in occupied Germany that the Russian dictator tried to enforce. The town is made up almost entirely of rural peasants and farmers who, while praising the regime in absurdly utopian terms, are in fact lazy, shiftless, corrupt, lustful, and cynically hypocritical. Only the children are depicted has having any true idealism and hope and can believe in the essential goodness of human nature and the possibility of future happiness despite the brutality and ugly behavior of their elders.
The title is "The Land Beyond the Rainbow" ("Das Land hinter dem Regenbogen"). It was written and directed by Herwig Kipping in 1991 and is much admired in film circles as a harsh but at the same time beautiful attack on the Communist regime in East Germany during the year 1953, the height of the Stalinist repression. East German workers rioted in Berlin during 1953 and were brutally suppressed by the Soviets and East German Communist autorities. A HBC reader tells us, "I went to a lecture by a German film historian who grouped this film with others as belonging to the GDR period [Wagner], so I took his word for it. I checked on the making of this film. Since the script wasn't actually written until 1991, I guess you must be correct about the actual making. I suppose what the lecturer I heard was implying that the director and author had the idea for this film quite a few years earlier when he still lived under Stalinist control of East Germany, and savage criticism of GDR politics, economy, and morals is emphasized in the film. So while the film was released in 1991, the author had been working on the ideas expressed here while the Stasi still controlled GDR film making. I believe he felt that his artistic life was much threatened by the Communist dictatorship that controlled all films in the GDR before the wall fell. It is interesting that the story of the film is set in 1953 at the height of Stalinist ideology in the eastern part of Germany." A reader tells us, "I read a book on the films of this period and the writing of the script for The Land Beyond the Rainbow was not finished until 1991, so they couldn't have started shooting earlier than that year. But I think the gestation of the film in the mind of the director had begun before the wall came down. You are quite right. The Stasi would never have permitted a film so harshly critical of the regime if they still had control of the film industry."
The German Economic Miracle underway in West Germany proved an increasing embarassment for East Germany. Rather than a worker's paradise, East German workers increasingly envied the rising living standards in West Germany. This proved to be more than an embarassment. Professionals and skilled workers fleeing to the West through Berlin and the still relatively porous border was a significant economic loss to the East German regime. East German leaders pleaded with Soviet authorities to take action. Thus in the Cold War Berlin became the hot spot of the Cold War. The ome place where American and Soviet tanks were mussle to mussle. It was especially dangerous because the Western position was so exposed because West Berlin was surronded by East Germany. The Soviets threatened to sign a peace treaty with East Germany which would undemine the World War II agreements which guaranteed the Western control of West Berlin. The action ultimately would be a massive wall to effectively imprison Germans in East Germany.
This is an interesting German film released (1991). Germany at the time was undegoing the process of reunification (1989-91). Following the success of Solidarity in Poland, the people of East Berlin began to demonstrate against the Easter German DDR Government. Large scale demonstrations became increasingly common. DDR officials prepared to use the security services to supress the street demonstrations. Chairman Gorbechev ibn a departure from his predecessors refused to approve such measures. Unable to forcibly supress the demonstrations, DDR officials wre forced to resign. The Berlin Wall was finally breached on November 9, 1989. The SED government announced that travel restrictions for East Germans had been lifted. That night the people of East Berlin surged into the western part of the city. Hundreds of thousands of Berliners celebrated throughout the night. Even more East Berliners crossed the next day. Soon Berliners with hammers and chissels and sledge hammars began demolishing the hated wall by hand. Actual reunification ewquired a treatty between the GDR and FRG and a Four Power Treaty treaty between the four occupying powers (Britain, Brance, the United Sttes, and the Soviet Union). This process was largely completed by 1990, although the ratification of the Four Power Treaty dragged on into 1991.
The two main characters are a boy called Rainbow-maker and his friend Marie, who is sometimes very
down to earth and at other times a sort of virginal princess clothed all in white. Sebastian Reznicek plays Rainbow-maker and Stephanie Janke plays Marie. The children are only about 10 years old. A third child character, Hans (played by Tomas Ernest), has certain demonic traits and is much less sensitive than the others in his unwitting cruelty to animals.
The film moves back and forth from reality to fantasy, depicting both the ugly and often comic depravity of life in the town alongside a kind of fairy-tale and magical poeticism that reflects the imagination and
inner creativity of the children, especially the two main juvenile characters. Kipping seems to have been strongly influenced by Renaissance painters such as Hieronymous Bosch and Peter Breughel who
combine peasant realism with an often phantasmagoric and cartoon-like hellishness.
The film is highly symbolic and in many places surrealistic. The peasants in a fictional East Germann village theoretically worships Stalin and the collectivist economy in occupied Germany that the Russian dictator tried to enforce. The town is made up almost entirely of rural peasants and farmers who, while praising the regime in absurdly utopian terms, are in fact lazy, shiftless, corrupt, lustful, and cynically hypocritical. Only the children are depicted has having any true idealism and hope and can believe in the essential goodness of human nature and the possibility of future happiness despite the brutality and ugly behavior of their elders. The innocence of the children is contrasted with the brutishness of peasant life, and there are many scenes of cruelty (the slaughtering of pigs, for instance, the chopping off of a chicken's
head, the spearing of fish, the flaying of an almost live rabbit, together with innumerable graphic sexual assaults). This film constitutes one of the most radical and graphic attacks on the attempt to Sovietize East Germany, but in doing so uses semi-allegorical techniques such as a crucifixion complete with cross and nails against the background of a giant image of Stalin. The savage irony of the film is assisted effectively by a score drawn mostly from the more idyllic and romantic works of Gustav Mahler. The climax of the film is a major fire set by one of the peasants that symbolizes the crazily destructive effects of Communist ideology and the foolishness of utopian policies that actually result in civic disaster.
The film is set in a fictional small town called Stalina.
The film is very interesting for its diverse costuming details. Rainbow-maker, the chief boy of the story, wears a pullover sweater, short trousers (sometimes lederhosen), and very long woolen stockings obviously supported by a Leibchen. In one of the scenes we see the children playfully undressing each other to reveal Marie wearing the typical Leibchen with four hose supporters that were characteristic of children's underwear (boys' and girls' alike) during the 1950s in the GDR. Marie wears a peasant dress and also brown stockings except in the scenes where she metamorphoses into a kind of virginal princess dressed all in white (complete with white long stockings). The images attached give a good idea of the children's costuming. The first image
shows Rainbow-maker and Marie in a private conversation in the nearby woods. The second image shows the same two children dressed up for May Day with Marie in white stockings and the boy in dark brown hosiery with a white shirt. The third image shows Rainbow-maker with his grandfather. The fourth image shows the two children undressing each other with Marie wearing the Leibchen with four garters. If for no other purpose, this shot gives us a rare view of children's underwear in 1950s Germany. The final image shows Hans, Marie, and Rainbow-maker with the latter's grandfather. Notice that in this scene, the boy is wearing lederhosen with his long woolen stockings. Our HBC reader tells us, "The lecturer I heard remarked that the historical
costuming for 1953 was carefully researched and reproduced. Notice the scene where the children are undressing each other--an interesting bit of childlike innocence and total naturalness about the human body in a
context of adult sexuality in which the parents and others behave like rabbits in heat. This scene gives us an excellent view of the typical Leibchen or Strumphalterhemd (undershirt with garters) that both boys and girls wore in 1953. So this particular scene is very enlightening about period underwear, information not easy to come by."
Wagner, Brigitta. Indiana University. Festival of DEFA films (2010).
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