In jenen Tagen (Those days) 1947

Wednesday March 10, 2010, 7 pm, 98 min, German w/English subtitles

An early post-war production, this film was shot in the ruins of Germany in 1947. Helmut Käutner and his co-author Ernst Schnabel used the novel idea of telling the story from the perspective of a car: from its first registration in 1933 through its final scrapping in 1947. Thus they re-tell the history of an era. Through seven episodes, the fates of the car's sucessive owners are depicted, among them a composer whose music is classed as “subversive”, a jewish couple, a deserting soldier and an old woman who is fleeing the Nazis. The film takes a realistic look at life under Hitler's regime. It presents a multi-faceted view of Germany, recalling the social and human ambience of “those days”.