THE FOLLOWING REVIEWS exhibit contrasting attitudes toward Peter Kahane’s film Die Architekten and toward the changing culture and politics of East Germany. Originally published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) in June 1990, Monika Zimmermann’s review “Mauern für die Phantasie” displays harsh criticisms of the film and of DEFA cinema in general. Roland Herold’s review “Die verratene Generation,” published in the same month in the Eastern Sächsisches Tageblatt, praises the film for its portrayal of the complexities of GDR society and the relationship between art and politics within it.

Zimmermann’s negative critique focuses on the specificity of Kahane’s film with regard to East German culture, claiming that Kahane could have “saved” the film from obscurity by rewriting it for a more universal audience. This view is ironic, especially in light of the fact that the prominence of Die Architekten in film history is largely based on its role as a cultural artifact of DEFA and Wende cinema. Herold, on the other hand, contextualizes the film within the changing landscape of DEFA cinema, focusing on its central psychosocial themes of compromise and self-censorship. Locating Die Architekten within a society in the process of gradual change, he demonstrates that the film may have received a more nuanced reception in the former East.

MZ [Monika Zimmermann]

Walls for the Imagination

First published as “Mauern für die Phantasie” in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (June 6, 1990).

Translated by Tracy N. Graves.

Die Architekten at the National Film Festival of the GDR in East Berlin

In the end diversity is slain by the “level tool of homogeneity.” The young architect Daniel Brenner (played by Kurt Naumann) may have gotten a medal pinned to his lapel, but in return all his illusions were taken from him. He received a large commission, but his little family left him as a result. He who was to build a more humane city had to learn quickly that imagination bumps into walls in every direction, at least into the walls of concrete-headed hardliners. Accordingly, glass surfaces that deviate from the norm cannot be integrated into the process of production, and grass roofs that stand out against gray monotony cannot be accommodated in the mind of the commissioner. Thus the houses don’t exactly get more colorful and lively; rather they remain gray and uniform—even those that Daniel Brenner will build.