diacad

"Niemansland" (No Man's Land) is one of several early talkies produced in the last years of Weimar Germany that the Nazis targetted for total elimination. As with "Kongress Tanzt", and "Dreigroschenoper", not all copies were destroyed. Long thought lost, a print of Niemansland surfaced in the United States and was restored by film archivist Maurice Zouary in 1969. It has now been distributed on VHS by Inkwell Images, Inc.

This film makes a simple human statement against war through brief parallel personal histories of five men, who encounter each other at the nexus of life and death. The culminating scenes are those at the battlefront in World War One. The sympathetic portrayal of a Russian Jew, and the depiction of a rather cosmopolitan and resourceful black man, especially infuriated the brownshirts, perhaps as much as the basic message that war was (and is) the supreme enemy of all.

"Niemansland" must be appreciated as an artifact of its time (1931). The silent era lends much to the acting and pacing, where exaggerated gestures and, frankly, stereotypes of various kinds, bridge the gaps due to the lack of sound. Perhaps this is understandable, since the film is multilingual (the first such of very few in film history), although English is predominant. There is an obvious influence of the silent Eisenstein and his gospel of montage. The musical score by the famous communist composer Hanns Eisler (who first fled Hitler to Hollywood, then fled Joe McCarthy to East Germany, there composing the GDR national anthem) is a fine finishing touch, and actually has been available on LPs and CDs for many years. And Ernst Busch, who was the streetsinger in "Dreigroschenoper" (Three Penny Opera), made the same year, plays the German soldier. Although the German Left was involved in the film's production, the message is pure and simple; there is not a trace of dogmatic sectarianism.

"Niemansland" would make good viewing today for those who are troubled (or should be) by the possibility of yet another war.

One of the legacies of the late GDR (East Germany) is a treasure-trove of cultural productions, much of which has been inaccessible to us. An exception is the 1974 DEFA (GDR successor to pre-1945 Ufa Film Studio) production "Jacob the Liar", which enjoyed a brief exposure in the US in the late '70s, even being nominated for an Academy Award. If you missed it, this is your chance to have it, beautifully transferred to DVD (also another justification for splurging on a DVD player, if you haven't already). Although it can be viewed without, the subtitles (your choice of language)are well-worded and legible.

"Jacob" centers on a man inadvertently finding himself a focus of hope among the doomed in a Polish ghetto. Circumstances have him reluctantly pretending to possess a forbidden radio, which leads to dramatic (and comedic) situations, and even raises moral questions and insights about truth and responsibility in such an adverse context. Billed as a tragic comedy, the acting and pacing of the story are equal to the serious nature of the subject.

Director Frank Beyer's "Jacob" should not be confused with the 1999 Hollywood remake starring the talented (but often glib and facetious) Robin Williams. This Columbia distribution is a sort of roadrunner-cartoon version trying to be profound. It has the frantic pacing and excessive gratuitous violence evidently presumed necessary to put it over. If you must have a Holocaust-era drama that can bear watching more than once, get the real McCoy.