Freiheit

George Lucas was going through making short films with deep meanings!! This one is just classic!! It's about German WW2 and a boy trying to escape Germany but is Shot down, in a gory manner!!

While looking at George Lucas's student films, it is easy to imagine the average person saying something along the lines of "Rather hard to believe that from these simplistic, brief movies one of the greatest filmmakers in cinematic history would develop". Yet given the context of the making of these shorts, I don't find it too difficult to project. The early independent movies of the infamous Lucas are indeed simple, with little or no plot, but they effectively feature some original and creative concepts, and showcase good craftsmanship to boot. "Look at Life" is brief but effectively edited with a nice music choice; "Herbie" makes use of some interesting cinematography and visuals topped with a pleasant jazz score. Not exceptional judging them from the standards of modern filmmaking, these two, but their ideas and the skills executed to show these ideas are top notch.

"Freiheit" is a great example of a student film from Lucas with a narrative to back it up. The story, in which a German student attempts to cross the Berlin border and reach safety, is short but is enhanced with the appropriate music choice, the solid acting of Randal Kleiser, and the camerawork that functions to add suspense. The finale is well-handled, and the voice-overs at the end that convey the theme on the importance of freedom is a wonderful finishing touch. I can well imagine Lucas's professor at the university being impressed with this work; for a student film, it is highly above the job an average person would do, and hence it is believable enough that the same man would go on to create on of the most popular film franchises in history. Sometimes all a film needs to be good is a successful point to drive home, and a decent story to bring that point across, and that's what this has.

Any Lucas fan worth his salt will want to check out this embryonic piece detailing the failed attempt of a boy to escape from unknown pursuers; presumably representatives of a repressive "empire". It is noteworthy that even at this stage of his career, Lucas was fascinated by war. The bitter disillusionment expressed here provides a sharp contrast to the cheerful optimism and good-triumphs-over-evil ending of the Star Wars trilogy. The symbolic desire for freedom here could equally apply to freedom of the imagination, an autonomy Lucas has always sought from studios in producing his work.

Freiheit (1966)

*** (out of 4)

Good early short film from director George Lucas, which he made while being a student at USC. In the film, we see a boy (Randal Kleiser) running but from what we're not sure of at the start. We see him continuing to run when we realize that he's trying to get his freedom by going from East Germany and crossing over to West. For the most part this is a pretty good three-minute short, which certainly has a message to get across and the director is able to do that even with the short running time. I thought the cinematography was quite good throughout and Lucas really managed to build up a little tension. The use of the voices at the end was very effective as well. Fans of the director will certainly want to check this one out.

I have not seen the complete movie, just the final minute available at USC website. It pretty much looks like an early version of "Electronic Labyrinth" (1967), and perhaps an early thought on the final moments of "THX 1138" (1971). It has never been clear to me what happens to THX after he goes to the surface. Like in this little short movie, you sympathize all the time with the quest for freedom of the main character, even if you don't know exactly what he is running from. In "Labyrinth" and "THX", you are not sure if he succeeds. In "Freiheit", it is clear what happens. May be the most interesting Lucas student film, after "Electronic Labyrinth".