Wohin und zurück - Teil 3: Welcome in Vienna

The stunning conclusion to Georg Stefan Troller's 'Where To and Back' trilogy brings his cycle of European immigration to an open-ended conclusion, while at the same time showing just how cold the Cold War could be. The message (you can't go home again) may be familiar, but the maxim becomes more complex and ironic from the perspective of an Austrian Jew in the American army, returning to his ruined homeland wearing the uniform of a conquering nation.

Director Axel Corti employs a straightforward, undemonstrative style to evoke a shadowy moral wasteland of deceit and opportunity not far removed from the world of Harry Lime in 'The Third Man', where enemies become friends, friends become strangers, strangers become lovers, and lovers can suddenly become enemies. The complete trilogy, written from painful first-hand experience, presents an epic journey of flight and displacement, but the final chapter in particular carries a unique sense of urgency, expressed with dramatically quiet (but no less devastating) understatement. The haunting conclusion is ambiguous: is the disappointed young hero finally giving up, or giving in?

Would someone please make this trilogy available in DVD for the US. I saw all three films at the Roxie Cinema in San Francisco years ago and would love to watch them again. The acting was excellent, the stories were heartfelt and all three films rang true. One detail I remember from the first film is of a young Jewish man, fleeing the Nazis, carrying his suitcase with his most important possessions, his books. In the second film the day to day struggles of the characters in this alien land, the USA, made me wonder how my parents had done it after the war and if I would have survived. In the third film a survivor returns to Vienna and tries to fit back into his old world, but could a Jew ever return to Germany or Austria?

This is the final film of a three-part series that follows the protagonists as they escape from Austria as Hitler invades, find unreliable shelter in France, flee to New Jersey, where they pass most of the wartime period, then return to Vienna as part of the American occupying forces. Politically, this third film is crucial, since it shows, as if by inadvertence, the re-installation of remnants of the former fascist power, with its anti-Jewish policies, in the post-war Austrian state.

The series as a whole, entitled "Wohin und Zuruck", is known in English by the title of the third film, "Welcome in Vienna". The first film flawlessly displays the roots of French collaboration. The second episode, called "Santa Fe", is set in New Jersey, but is named for the land they dream of inhabiting, in the American west. The score, in sostenato, is the haunting largo of the Schubert quintet .

These are very important films, which richly deserve to be released in DVD format.