Les assassins sont parmi nous

The opening scene conveys the film's mood. A low-angle camera shot shows bombed-out buildings, rubble in the street, an abandoned war tank, a makeshift wooden cross stuck in the ground, and a middle age man walking alone toward the camera, as three children play amid the ruins. There's no dialogue, just jazzy, bouncy, upbeat piano music that contrasts sharply with the bleak B&W image.

Set in Berlin in 1945, the film tells the fictional story of a former surgeon, the man in the opening scene, whose name is Dr. Mertens (Ernst Borchert). He's dispirited and cynical. He meets up with a young woman, played by Hildegard Knef. The two of them share an uninviting apartment, severely damaged in the recently ended war. Knef's character is attracted to the dejected surgeon. But he's too disheartened to care. The deaths of thousands of people in a war render a surgeon's job of saving one life rather meaningless, according to Dr. Mertens. As the plot moves along, he reunites with an older, prosperous industrialist, a man whose attitude about the war is curiously indifferent.

All of the film's photography was done in Berlin, right after the war. The destroyed buildings and brick rubble are a big part of the story, symbolic of human devastation. B&W, expressionistic cinematography is terrific, with stark shadows amid the ruins, human silhouettes against bleak, cracked walls.

Interiors remind me of those in "The Blue Angel" (1930), dilapidated, dirty, cheap, drab, and very depressing. In "The Murderers Are Among Us", background music is minimal. Most scenes lack music, and the story is more potent for it. Sound effects consist of squeaky doors, footsteps on wooden floors, and other realistic sounds. The film's casting and acting are fine.

Historically significant as the first German film made in Germany following the end of WWII, "The Murderers Are Among Us" reminds us of the horrors of war. One scene near the end is unforgettable in its severity. Outside at night, with snow gently falling, arc lights create ghostly shadows. The surgeon stands alone amid the rubble, outside a damaged church where people inside are singing "Silent Night". Faces of the people are grim. What a bleak period in human history.

This powerful piece of Historic Fiction shows a realistic look at Post-WWII Germany, and the determination of the shook-up nation to pick up the pieces and survive their darkest chapter in modern history. Many gripping moments include the "return" of a young woman (played by a very young Hildegard Knef) who had spent years in Nazi concentration camps. Her innocence and purity are reflected in the woman's complete willingness to "forgive and forget" the attrocities witnessed and experienced.

A main character was a commanding officer responsible for horrible acts against innocent civilians, while another had refused to take part in such evil. The final scenes "drive home" the message how some feel no remorse for their evil deeds, while others remain plagued with the images of those mercilessly tortured and murdered.

Seeing the young woman who had been victimized by the evil regime step in to prevent a altercation between the man she loves and the man responsible for much of the suffering shows that humans are capable of forgiving and thus surviving into a better life, free of hate and vengeance.

I highly recommend the original German version with or without the subtitles. Many of the effects require the original sound track. This would be a valuable teaching tool for an advanced German class, or a related European History lesson

Immediately after WWII, Italy and Japan developed strong national cinemas. The same thing didn't happen in Germany. I really didn't know they made any films in the aftermath, but apparently they did. The Murderers Are Among us was made just the year after Germany lost the war. It's quite a strong film, feeling a lot like the film noir style that was all the rage in America at the time (which, in turn, was heavily influenced by German silent cinema). Ernst Wilhelm Borchert plays an alcoholic doctor who is haunted by his participation in the war. He hooks up with his new roommate (Hildegard Knef), which helps him a little, but then he runs into his former commanding officer (Arno Paulsen), which sends him into an angry, murderous downward spiral. The film is actually thinly veiled propaganda, expressing that not all Germans (be they soldiers or civilians) were okay with wiping out entire Polish villages or, you know, the Jews. Eh, maybe I can accept that, but, taking the film as some kind of apology, it all feels a tad too little too late. I do, however, like the appeal for peace and justice, as opposed to revenge. The last thing the world needed at the time was more violence. The filmmaking is very beautiful. Sometimes it feels like a dry run for The Third Man. I don't know if Carol Reed saw this film, but one filmmaker who most certainly did was Lars von Trier. His film Europa cribs from this one pretty liberally at times, most notably the image of a snowfall in a bombed-out church.

Unit 5 film discussion Matt Butcher The Murderers Are Among Us is a film made immediately after World War II in East Germany. The melancholy of the film is derived from its main characters, a female concentration camp survivor who returns to her old apartment to find it occupied by an ex-military doctor. This military doctor drives the main conflict of the film in that his conscience is slowly eating away at him for his apparent actions during the war.

In this regard, the film acts as a conscience for the people of East Germany, slowly asking themselves about their past and how they are going to live with it. It was a tumultuous period of reconciliation that the Germans were trying to live through. This movie tries to act on those feelings.

Silberman notes that another film of this time, Rotation, "constructs a narration based on identification and emotional catharsis rather than on the cognitive terms of epic distanciation." The Murderers Are Among Us also tries to wipe the slate clean. It comes out and admits that what happened was wrong, hence the horrible feelings that the doctor is going through. They cannot completely distance themselves from these previous events, these earth-shattering events, unless they work through these feelings.

"Die mörder sind unter uns" takes place in Berlin in ruins and features three main characters:Susanne (Hildegarde Knef),a survivor from the concentration camps;a former army medical officer,haunted and tormented by what he did and saw;a former nazi officer who feels no remorse because "he used to obey".

Susanne ,played by gorgeous Knef,wants to pick up the pieces.She's the strongest character of the movie .She comes back from hell,so what could be worse?To her Xmas means forgiveness and she knows that death breeds death.When he sees her take care of the seedy flat,the doctor first shrugs,but soon he will use his radiographs to replace the panes. Biggest flaw:it's impossible to believe that Susanne is just out of a camp:actually she seems to go out of a beauty parlor.

The doctor is a human wreck who heavily drinks to forget the war horrors.It's only when he meets again his former superior that he rouses himself from his lethargy.Although he feels hatred and thirst of revenge,he is not devoid of compassion:when he takes the man he wants to kill to a desert place among the ruins ,he heeds the call of a desperate mother:it's the most emotional sequence of the movie.

On the other hand,the officer behaves as if the war had never happened:the parallel between the two Xmas celebrations(past and present) climaxes the movie .The director chose a good-natured actor,nothing like the nazi villain we generally meet.

The directing shows Fritz Lang's (and expressionism) influence:the huge shadow on the criminal recalls the little girl with the balloon scene in "M".And along with "the third man",the movie had a strong influence on two movies: -"the man between"(1953),another Carol Reed movie :James Mason's character resembles the doctor of this movie.

-and mainly,mainly, Rosselini's "Germania anno zero"(1948),which dwarves "die mörder sind unter uns".People who enjoyed Staudte's movie should see the Italian genius's masterpiece.