DVDs OF THE WEEK: Whisper & Shout / Red Cartoons

whisper & SHOUT (flüstern & SCHREIEN)
Dir. Dieter Schumann
1988, 115 minutes, in German with English subtitles
First Run Features

Red Cartoons: Animated Films From East Germany
1974 – 1990, 57 minutes, in German (no subtitles)
First Run Features

As the exclusive North American distributor of the DEFA film archives (Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft, the state-run studio of former East Germany, which disbanded after reunification), First Run Features has smartly doled out a pair of discs this past week showcasing unlike artistic mediums with plenty of thematic overlap in the GDR era: rock music and animation.

Which isn't to say the illuminating rock doc whisper & SHOUT isn't highly animated in its own way, as hinted by a commanding title card: "Dieser film muß laut gehört warden" ("This film must be heard loud"). Dieter Schumann's roving portrait of the late-'80s East German glam-and-punk-influenced underground scene, the first in a proposed trilogy of "rock reports," isn't so much a backstage exposé as it is a sociopolitical thermometer of the period. (Surprisingly, the censors approved it, two years before the Berlin Wall fell.) All-access vérité passes like Woodstock, Dont Look Back and The Decline of Western Civilization certainly come to mind as we dip into the touring lives of post-punkers Feeling B (whose keyboardist Christian Lorenz and rhythm guitarist Paul Landers went on to join Rammstein), the more popular synth-centrics Silly, peacenik troubadours Sandow, and Chicorée—who later spins off into two-piece Die Zöllner after frontman Dirk Zöllner is booted by his bandmates for having too much integrity to sell out. Wait, really?

Sure, but consider the artistic throughline between the bands—rebellion against the system, heard in the mostly charmingly labored metaphors of their lyrics—and the fact that only antiseptic, state-licensed and subsidized pop bands like the Puhdys (twice sneered at onscreen with the same contempt given to disco) were finding wide commercial success. Rock musicians could barely survive without government support, but who could fault the passionate rebels playing makeshift concert venues, too prideful to suck up to an oppressive regime that once reprimanded Silly for having an anglicized name? To be honest, more than two decades later, much of the music here won't necessarily have you clicking your way to the iTunes store, but the live performances are spirited time-capsules of a forgotten struggle, one Westerners should find colorfully exotic enough to raise a lighter. Sometimes it's even cheesy in the most agreeable way, as when André + Die Firma wail a new-wavey number with a repeating motif that translates to "Hot and horny are my dreams."

What really juices whisper & SHOUT to 11, however, is the outside influence of the teenage groupies and other onlookers (even a police officer!) who support the cause. Nubile beauties sunbathe topless while being interviewed about their anticipation for a killer show. A scraggly kid smokes cigarettes and mouths every single word from the crowd. Riled-up boys aggressively jig at each other in a peculiar cross between a mosh pit and Riverdance. Schumann even tracks a young blonde named Tara, the ultimate Silly super-fan (see top photo) with a bedroom covered only in posters of her idols, and perhaps the film's most compelling scene is a fervent dinnertime discussion about her obsession and punky aesthetic with, presumably, her mother and grandparents. Having come of age in the chaos of the GDR, here's a girl who recognizes and connects to the pointed themes in her heroes' songs, except her generational angst cuts deeper for knowing two enemies: the socialist state... and her parents.

Unlike those rockers making their critiques from the fringes, the East German animators included in the Red Cartoons collection quietly pointed their fingers from the inside. DEFA's animation studio produced more than 800 shorts since its 1955 inauguration, but it wasn't until the '70s when films were made for audiences other than children, which allowed a subtle creeping-in of social satire that would've been banned within live-action cinema (not that all GDR cartoons were censor-proof, as an on-disc essay further explains). Most of the 16 "adult" shorts here are cutesy, utilizing uncomplicated but vibrantly colored illustrative styles on sparse backgrounds—some of the later work even tries out mixed-media supplements—like a poor man's Schoolhouse Rock! or classic Sesame Street bit, or reminiscent of the Little Miss children's book series.

If the animation techniques themselves seem dug up from a time capsule, the gently subversive ideas within are worth blowing the dust off of. The satirical weapon of choice throughout is O. Henry-style irony, like in Otto Sacher's 1978 Star and Flower, in which a man in the sky amongst his stars longs for a earthling's flower and vice-versa, their shared frustration leading them to destroy their respective treasures—East, meet West. The work of Klaus Georgi, represented in over half of the shorts, is perhaps the most directly engaging. In 1979's Variants, two neighbors whose houses butt up against one another (okay, we get it!) replay the same happening with three different joke endings: what to do when a pile of leaves has accumulated on their shared property line. In his 1988 short The Full Circle, industrial pollution has forced every businessman, high-society woman and playground tyke into a gas mask, and what does the nearby villainous factory produce? Gas masks. Saving the best for last, both here and on the DVD, Georgi's sometime collaborator Lutz Stützner's 1990 Island Joke sees three men survive drowning in the ocean by making their way to a small patch of land. Naked and freezing, they're magically greeted by a mermaid who offers up a long swathe of fabric to warm themselves. Cut back to: the still nude and chattering men, now saluting the flag they've dutifully hung. *rim shot*

Posted by ahillis at January 23, 2010 8:09 PM