Godard crashes an East German art freakout in 6 perfect minutes.
"[This film] embodies (...) one of his [Hahnemann's] most mature films. Rainy rides along Schönhauser Allee, which seems to be depopulated. Past the 'Viennese Café', the meeting place par excellence. From a moving train the view of idyllic landscapes, on the horizon a castle. The camera tilts, turns, until the world is upside down. Scenes of an action with the artist friend Heike Stephan: in the sanctuary Hahnemann, black painted with a white turban, and Stephan, stack cages with rabbits on top of each other. Then TV recordings of a discussion forum with Jean-Luc Godard and Rosa von Praunheim - scenes as from another planet. From the off again and again a poem Hahnemann, recited by Peter Mario Graus. The diction is initially calm, almost factual, increases, eventually overturns, but then falls back, resigned. " (Claus Löser in "Gegenbilder")
Direction
Hahnemann's camera literally inverts your world.
Editing
Godard footage feels alien, borrowed, stolen.
Director
Gino Hahnemann
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Schönhauser Allee was the symbolic heart of East Berlin's alternative scene; filming it 'depopulated' in 1986 was itself a political act.
Hahnemann smuggled this through DEFA's censors by framing it as personal art, not documentary—Godard's presence was the trap door.
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