Auge in Auge (Eye to Eye: All About German Film...)
Germany 2008

Opening 3 Jul 2008

Directed by: Michael Althen
Writing credits: Hans Helmut Prinzler, Michael Althen

110 years of German film history were painstakingly compiled by Hans Helmut Prinzler and Michael Althen. It is great fun to watch snippets of old pre-war films, the pompous era of propaganda films during the 1940s, to see famous, familiar faces of the ‘50s, and scenes of the ‘60s with girls in swinging petticoats. The authors highlight typical German mannerisms, i.e. zooming-in men’s eyes with exaggerated expressions of suffering, or glamour girls with close-ups of eyes all shining and seducing. Other themes concentrate on landscape, modes of transportation, or the art of smoking in films, which nowadays is good for a hearty laugh. The sequences are well-timed with frequent changing pace of clips. Woven into the screenings are spontaneous and lively comments by Wim Wenders, Christian Petzold, Doris Dörrie, Dominik Graf, and others, placed before a running film sequence or the entrance of well-known cinema buildings. Auge in Auge was shown in German only (no subtitles), and the film seems to be aimed mainly at the German viewer who already knows and remembers most of the filmed material. It is an amusing, nostalgic look back at “the good old days” of cinema. One leaves the theatre smiling but with a touch of melancholy. (Birgit Schrumpf)