Vol. 22 · No. 2 · Issue 70 · Summer 2004

Alexandra Ludewig, German, University of Western Australia

Download full article (117 KB) [subscribers only]

Abstract

The unifying message in all these films is that the only certainty in life is change, which is especially true for Germans coming to terms with the heritage of Nazism and Socialism. For them, the backdrop of the boundless, timeless forces of nature serves as a corrective to their human plight.[56] And while the cinema that featured the alpine refuge had at its core the message that society and the individual can live in perfect harmony as integral parts of one another,[57] the ocean backdrop seems to promote a place for the individual within and outside of society and civilization at one and the same time, as an integral part of nature. In view of the infinite sea, humans realize that they are "at best marginalia in another era's fossil record."[58] This forces a reassessment of their worldview, resulting in their abandoning their position at the center of the universe. As they realize that "the sea hides and dissolves, […] translating objects from the upper to the lower world,"[59] they come to terms with their own insignificance. This trend indicates a paradigm shift in the Heimat genre in some of the better film releases from Germany that are far from revisionist and offer a fairly balanced and informed engagement with the highly political cinematic history.