(Film review)
Locked Up Time is a documentary film directed by one of the most famous female film directors of Germany, Ms.Sibylle Schonemann. The film is based on her real-life story which appears to be stranger than a fictitious tale. Sibylle Schonemann and her husband had requested the socialist government of East Germany(GDR) in 1984 for exit visas to move to West Germany because of the curbs on their freedom of expression in the East. But never in their wildest dreams had they thought that they will be arrested as a consequence and put behind the bars. After serving a sentence of several months as a political prisoner, Schonemann was expelled to West Germany followed by her husband and children who joined her at a later date.
When the film opens the Berlin Wall is in the process of being demolished and Schonemann is seen travelling back to the East in search of answers to the question as to why she and her husband were hunted down by the authorities. She wanted to confront the people who were responsible for her arrest and subsequent imprisonment. She meets the prison warden, the interrogator, the lawyer, the judge, the colonel and several others to collect as much information as they are ready to divulge. The situation has already changed completely. The two Germanys have been united. No oppressive regime was in place. But still the answers were not easily forthcoming.
Schonemann is seen asking some aged labourers who are assigned the task of demolishing a part of the Berlin wall as to what is more interesting and satisfying for them: Building the wall? Or demolishing it? The obvious implication is that they were part of the team which built the wall several decades ago. It is not altogether impossible, but we will never know if someone, in real life, ever was a part of both the erection and demolition of the wall. But that is not important. What is important is the reply of the labourers: "We don't care as long as we are paid for it"
We will be shocked at the turn of events that changed the life of Schonemann and her husband. They themselves could not comprehend what is happening to their lives. They were picked up from their house at 6 a.m. in the morning. For apparently no reason at all, or so they believed. Their children were assured by the officers that their parents would be back by noon. But the poor kids did not see their parents for several months after that fateful morning. After they were picked up, they were detained separately and were told that they would be produced before a custodial judge the next day morning. Schonemann says that she spent the night in detention firmly believing that she and her husband would be apologised to the next morning for the mistake and that an order would be issued to release them immediately. It is this firm belief of Schonemann that the arrest was a mistake that reveals the complexity of the situation. Most, if not all, of the convicts believe that they are totally innocent. But the authorities are totally convinced of their guilt and the government machinery moves very swiftly to put the 'erring' citizens behind bars. Schonemann recollects walking several times along the road in front of the building that housed the prison. She says she never knew that there was a prison behind that wall of the building. That 'road' could be for real, or it can well be an image of her own life through which she was moving forward smoothly with no inclination of what is going to happen to her all of a sudden with no warning at all. She was just like you and me: a normal human being, a wife, a daughter and a mother.
When she meets all those who were part of the system that had done injustice to her, she confronts them with emotional questions: "Were you not aware that I had kids at home?", "Were you not aware, when you refused to hand over my husband's letter to me, that I had not heard from him for 3 months after our arrest?", "Didn't you know that I was innocent?". She repeats these questions several times to several people but nobody bothers to answer. They behave as if they did not hear anything. They are so cold in their response as if they don't care for such things. They are not remorseful; they don't think that they owe an explanation. They are otherwise friendly; they co-operate with Schonemann in the making of the documentary, but their tone is matter of fact. Their replies are gross generalisations. They insist that they don't remember much and that they don't even know much about Schonemann's specific case. The individual did not matter in GDR. It appears that the habit had stayed with the officials even after the collapse of the Berlin wall.
The judge says that he could not have acquitted Schonemann after the trial even if he had wanted to. He stops short of saying that he wanted her to be free. But he does say that since the conditions of the relevant Section of the law had been met in Schonemann's case, he had no other way but to sentence her to imprisonment. He also adds that the reason for Schonemann's delayed release was that the government did not want to let DEFA know that one among them was released so early and so easily.
The Colonel, the highest ranking official interviewed in the documentary agrees that they were only two ways of dealing with the situation: One, believe in the socialist regime and its virtues and do whatever can be done to keep it going even at the expense of many things. Second, renounce it. He says in a lighter vein that when we love a person we have to love him unconditionally; we cannot partly like him and partly hate him. In much the same manner, one was not allowed in GDR to support 'this' Section of the law but oppose 'that' Section. There were only two ways. There was no third way. Probably that is the what differentiates an authoritarian regime from a democratic one!
The brilliance of the director comes to light in a small episode in which she manipulates a scene in which she meets one of the officials at the closed gate of his house. Without opening the gate, the official standing on the other side of the gate informs Schonemann, even as her crew shots the action, that he cannot make himself available for an interview at that moment and that she needs to take an appointment for a later date. She requests for a confirmed date, and the official expresses his inability to confirm the appointment because he had to go to the hospital for a check up and he was not sure what will turn up in the medical investigation. He may have been lying. Or he may have been telling the truth. He asks Schonemann to telephone him after two days and bids her good bye with a firm handshake through the grilled gate. Later on, when Schonemann telephones him, he excuses himself citing a medical emergency, but willingly answers some questions that Schonemann asks over the phone. What we see next is a footage in which the visuals are from the earlier scene in which Schonemann and the official are seen on either side of the closed gate and the audio is from the recorded telephonic conversation. The video and audio are so perfectly synchronised that it will appear as if Schonemann is interviewing the official at the gate of his house and that he is bidding farewell at the end of the interview. No malice intended here, but probably Schonemann wants to show us how easily evidence can be doctored and how easy it would have been for the State to persecute someone on the strength of such evidences.
Every official interviewed in the movie appeared to be part of a long chain in the bureaucracy and when asked as to who was the ultimate authority who was giving the orders, the General says that, in short, it was the Government and the Party. We, as viewers, are not interested either in who was the particular person behind the persecution of Schonemann. She was not alone; there were several of them, and some more unlucky than Schonemann!
All in all, a brilliant and thought provoking movie.
Locked Up Time is a documentary film directed by one of the most famous female film directors of Germany, Ms.Sibylle Schonemann. The film is based on her real-life story which appears to be stranger than a fictitious tale. Sibylle Schonemann and her husband had requested the socialist government of East Germany(GDR) in 1984 for exit visas to move to West Germany because of the curbs on their freedom of expression in the East. But never in their wildest dreams had they thought that they will be arrested as a consequence and put behind the bars. After serving a sentence of several months as a political prisoner, Schonemann was expelled to West Germany followed by her husband and children who joined her at a later date.
When the film opens the Berlin Wall is in the process of being demolished and Schonemann is seen travelling back to the East in search of answers to the question as to why she and her husband were hunted down by the authorities. She wanted to confront the people who were responsible for her arrest and subsequent imprisonment. She meets the prison warden, the interrogator, the lawyer, the judge, the colonel and several others to collect as much information as they are ready to divulge. The situation has already changed completely. The two Germanys have been united. No oppressive regime was in place. But still the answers were not easily forthcoming.
Schonemann is seen asking some aged labourers who are assigned the task of demolishing a part of the Berlin wall as to what is more interesting and satisfying for them: Building the wall? Or demolishing it? The obvious implication is that they were part of the team which built the wall several decades ago. It is not altogether impossible, but we will never know if someone, in real life, ever was a part of both the erection and demolition of the wall. But that is not important. What is important is the reply of the labourers: "We don't care as long as we are paid for it"
We will be shocked at the turn of events that changed the life of Schonemann and her husband. They themselves could not comprehend what is happening to their lives. They were picked up from their house at 6 a.m. in the morning. For apparently no reason at all, or so they believed. Their children were assured by the officers that their parents would be back by noon. But the poor kids did not see their parents for several months after that fateful morning. After they were picked up, they were detained separately and were told that they would be produced before a custodial judge the next day morning. Schonemann says that she spent the night in detention firmly believing that she and her husband would be apologised to the next morning for the mistake and that an order would be issued to release them immediately. It is this firm belief of Schonemann that the arrest was a mistake that reveals the complexity of the situation. Most, if not all, of the convicts believe that they are totally innocent. But the authorities are totally convinced of their guilt and the government machinery moves very swiftly to put the 'erring' citizens behind bars. Schonemann recollects walking several times along the road in front of the building that housed the prison. She says she never knew that there was a prison behind that wall of the building. That 'road' could be for real, or it can well be an image of her own life through which she was moving forward smoothly with no inclination of what is going to happen to her all of a sudden with no warning at all. She was just like you and me: a normal human being, a wife, a daughter and a mother.
When she meets all those who were part of the system that had done injustice to her, she confronts them with emotional questions: "Were you not aware that I had kids at home?", "Were you not aware, when you refused to hand over my husband's letter to me, that I had not heard from him for 3 months after our arrest?", "Didn't you know that I was innocent?". She repeats these questions several times to several people but nobody bothers to answer. They behave as if they did not hear anything. They are so cold in their response as if they don't care for such things. They are not remorseful; they don't think that they owe an explanation. They are otherwise friendly; they co-operate with Schonemann in the making of the documentary, but their tone is matter of fact. Their replies are gross generalisations. They insist that they don't remember much and that they don't even know much about Schonemann's specific case. The individual did not matter in GDR. It appears that the habit had stayed with the officials even after the collapse of the Berlin wall.
The judge says that he could not have acquitted Schonemann after the trial even if he had wanted to. He stops short of saying that he wanted her to be free. But he does say that since the conditions of the relevant Section of the law had been met in Schonemann's case, he had no other way but to sentence her to imprisonment. He also adds that the reason for Schonemann's delayed release was that the government did not want to let DEFA know that one among them was released so early and so easily.
The Colonel, the highest ranking official interviewed in the documentary agrees that they were only two ways of dealing with the situation: One, believe in the socialist regime and its virtues and do whatever can be done to keep it going even at the expense of many things. Second, renounce it. He says in a lighter vein that when we love a person we have to love him unconditionally; we cannot partly like him and partly hate him. In much the same manner, one was not allowed in GDR to support 'this' Section of the law but oppose 'that' Section. There were only two ways. There was no third way. Probably that is the what differentiates an authoritarian regime from a democratic one!
The brilliance of the director comes to light in a small episode in which she manipulates a scene in which she meets one of the officials at the closed gate of his house. Without opening the gate, the official standing on the other side of the gate informs Schonemann, even as her crew shots the action, that he cannot make himself available for an interview at that moment and that she needs to take an appointment for a later date. She requests for a confirmed date, and the official expresses his inability to confirm the appointment because he had to go to the hospital for a check up and he was not sure what will turn up in the medical investigation. He may have been lying. Or he may have been telling the truth. He asks Schonemann to telephone him after two days and bids her good bye with a firm handshake through the grilled gate. Later on, when Schonemann telephones him, he excuses himself citing a medical emergency, but willingly answers some questions that Schonemann asks over the phone. What we see next is a footage in which the visuals are from the earlier scene in which Schonemann and the official are seen on either side of the closed gate and the audio is from the recorded telephonic conversation. The video and audio are so perfectly synchronised that it will appear as if Schonemann is interviewing the official at the gate of his house and that he is bidding farewell at the end of the interview. No malice intended here, but probably Schonemann wants to show us how easily evidence can be doctored and how easy it would have been for the State to persecute someone on the strength of such evidences.
Every official interviewed in the movie appeared to be part of a long chain in the bureaucracy and when asked as to who was the ultimate authority who was giving the orders, the General says that, in short, it was the Government and the Party. We, as viewers, are not interested either in who was the particular person behind the persecution of Schonemann. She was not alone; there were several of them, and some more unlucky than Schonemann!
All in all, a brilliant and thought provoking movie.
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