Murderers Among Us (Wolfgang Staudte, 1946)

Some observations: a film that obviously fails because it places the Germans as victims and doesn't come to confront what happened in WWII, while claiming to, yet only showing Germans suffering. Yet some stylistic flourishes are definitely worth commenting on.

One scene in particular that stood out was the scene in which Dr. Hans Mertens (Ernst Wilhelm Borchert) is playing chess at the saloon with the cabaret type dancer. At first there is a close-up of Hans talking and he blows smoke through the chessboard and talks about how it is reminiscent of the battlefield. The first shot of this is a low angle that looks up and directly on Hans with the chessboard below him. Then there is a shot of the chessboard without Hans as the smoke goes through and then it becomes a close-up of the dancer and Hans as they continue to play and Hans continues to get angrier. Once he raises his voice and the conversation does not just involve them too, it becomes a medium-long shot and you can see everyone in the room and their reactions to Hans’s outburst. In sense of composition, editing and evoking a visual language; perhaps a perfect sequence.

Also, countless shots through mirrors and shattered mirrors that are visually pleasing and convey the inner emotions of the characters. Another great moment was the shot when Hans is speaking with his former Nazi captain and the camera zooms in on his as Hans stares directly into it and all diegetic sound goes away, being replaced with battle ground explosions and machine gunfire. A similar shot also happens with Susanne. I found these two shots to be the most powerful shots of the film. It is as if the characters are looking straight into the audiences and making them ponder about the atrocities that have occurred. It is also the best way of seeing the two characters inner emotions. To me it is a perfect example of exactly what a certain theorists, particularly Balázs, would praise. And I’m also inclined to think that this could’ve influenced, or (most likely) foreshadowed, Bergman’s more direct approach of this technique when Märta, in Winter Light, faces directly at the camera and reads a letter. The on-location shooting was another technique that I found incredibly powerful and poetic; the destruction of the city mirroring the citizens destroyed lives. The use of shadows was also excellent, especially in one of the ending shots where Hans’s shadow overpowers the evil Nazi captain; in a scene straight out of a noir flick.

The use of the psychic was interesting as well. A parallel the use of the psychic in Bicycle Thieves: in such a devastated time and society people flock to psychics to try and hear any news that promise a better tomorrow.

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