It was with profound sadness that earlier this week I learned that Hannelore Elsner had passed on.
More than a few of my fellow Americans might think to themselves “Who?” The truth is, if you aren’t German or a Germanophile, you have probably never heard of Hannelore Elsner. Elsner has appeared in many of my favorite German films: Alles auf Zucker, Mein Bruder Jakob, and one of my fave films, Cherry Blossoms.
Her listing on IMDB is quite long. She appeared in more than two hundred movie and television productions going back to 1959. Her passing was front page news on many German news sites. But her career and her work was only a facet of the rich film tradition in Germany, a vibrant world I only know of because of my German studies.
Some films break through the language and cultural barriers to make it over the Atlantic. Many of my friends have seen Run Lola Run, The Lives of Others, and Downfall. But many other good and entertaining films never make it to mainstream American cinemas: Whole Train, a film about graffiti artists in Berlin is one of my favorite German films. Die Welle, based on a true story, when a high school teacher starts a workshop on autocracy that gets out of hand is also quite good. And one of my favorite films, Alles auf Zucker, shows what happens when an old drunken sportscaster and his family try to quickly become orthodox Jews in order to get an inheritance.
I honestly believe many of these German films would do well in the states, an opinion a lot of people disagree with. Someone told me Die Welle wouldn’t do well in the USA because teenagers wouldn’t be able to relate to German kids since they were so different for American teenagers, which was a ridiculous assertion. The adolescents in Die Welle were doing things like skateboarding, throwing beach parties, and smoking dope. You know, stuff American teenagers could never relate to! (Insert eyeroll.)
I believe a lot of Yankee Germanophiles like the idea of an “underground” world of German cinema, since we have knowledge and access to so many good and great films that are unknown in the States. They scoff at the idea that any of these films could work in American distribution because it’s “our” cinema, just for the Deutschsprachende! That’s not me. I want to open up this world for the rest of my fellow Americans.
My unique knowledge of German cinema makes me feel privileged, since I am privy to a treasure trove of entertainment that’s been denied to many in the US. But it also makes me wonder, what am I missing? Maybe there’s a rich collection of good films in France, in Finland, in China, in who-knows-where that I don’t know about, simply because I live in the insulated West. Perhaps it’s time to start digging around.
Vibrant film and television culture doesn’t start and end in Hollywood. We should all start looking around to see what we’re missing.
Got Netflix? Check out Dark, the German Stranger Things. I’ll tell you this, I think it’s better than Stranger Things, and I really like that show!
Cherry Blossoms
Die Welle
