1970s – Berlinale: When the blood bubbles

The Golden 1970s were a free decade and a brutal decade. Although the 68 revolt had not managed, at least solidifying the belief that society would develop fundamentally to the better-in west and east. Reason and imagination were very popular. Even if the mode of production was not changed, but only the lifestyle, you were never again on the move as it was so utopian and optimistic as it was then.

The liveliness of this decade can be seen not only in pop music, in which glam, disco, punk and hip-hop were invented in a row, but in a fundamental refinement of the lifestyle in matters of nutrition, vacation, living and sexuality. The middle class at the mass university.

There was a lot of experimentation and discussion, social justice, the core concept of the then powerful social democracy as well as the new social movements on the left, was considered enforceable, even if only the hairstyles of men and women are often freed: long manes everywhere. Just as the wind sometimes blew apart, society should also be blown through so that people could finally breathe more freely.

Because the advanced ideas came across a returning, reactionary society, supported by dull male violence in a variety of forms, whether in the proletariat or in the bourgeoisie. The children were beaten, the women were beaten, the weak were abused and despised. In the 70s, the bluntness and openness were parallel phenomena, which can be determined in families, companies, schools and pubs. Both together can be visited in the retrospective of this year’s Berlinale, which is devoted to the German genre film of the 1970s, German means films from the FRG and the GDR. They run under the motto “Wild, weird, bloody” and are said to be relatives of the new German film of the 1960s like the American exploitation films of the 1970s. These author films were meant quite commercially if they mostly address violent relationships in a predominantly raw structure, which can be understood as a simple but effective ideology criticism at the time. Especially since sociology was the fashion compartment at universities in the 1970s.

Even a brutal bank robber then says such sentences such as: “Crime is not, but the consequence of a development”, played by the then Star Macho Raimund Harmstorf in “Blutiger Friday” (1972) by Rolf Olsen. At the end, when the police are shot on the run, the blood from his belly is bubbling between Trash and deep meaning when he was out of his stomach as if from a small red fountain, directly onto the banknotes in front of him, which he fell out of the money sac Flow went. Before he attacks the bank with his gang, he explains the procedure: “You have to think we are stupid and brutal, otherwise we will not believe.” And so they behave. When they take hostages in the bank, onlookers gather outside, who are interviewed by a radio reporter: “You should hang them up”, is required, or: “There is only one thing: death penalty!”

In “girls with violence” (1970) by Roger Fritz, Helga Anders says about Rolf Zacher as a playful hippie: “Rolf is completely unaggressive, I think that’s nice”. But she gets to two aggressive friends, played by the very young Klaus Löwitsch and Arthur Brauss, who rape them and then try to kill each other. This has something absurd and repulsive and shows a toxic masculinity that gives people up. Filmed like a minimalist western in an abandoned quarry, powerful and with pathetic and bizarre dialogues.

With Roland Klick’s classic “Deadlock” (1970), another existentialist-intentioned German western runs in the retrospective. Somewhere in a rebuilt America, filmed in the Israeli Negev desert, bank robbers argue for the prey. There are only seven people, four of whom die. In addition to the organ trade crime thriller “Fleisch” (1979) by Rainer Erler, who also plays in the USA (and was also shot there) and “the tenderness of the wolves” (1973), Ulli Lommel’s expressionist drama about the serial murderer Fritz Haarmann, so to speak, so to speak A Fassbinder film without Fassbinder (although it plays in a supporting role) are the most famous West German films that are presented. Klaus Lemke’s »Rocker« (1972), filmed for the ZDF with laypersons from the Hamburg neighborhood, never got beyond his legend status among fans and initiates. It is still a strong film about ritual-routine male violence that runs empty. The boss of the rocker only cries when a truck driver crosses and destroys his new motorcycle because he was previously humiliated. In addition, music from the Rolling Stones – that would be priceless today, but maybe the underground filmmaker Klaus Lemke knew someone who knew the Rolling Stones and affirmed the right one cheaply?

The bloody-dramaturgical seriousness of these films is not only from comedies such as “Lady Dracula” (1978) by Franz Josef Gottlieb (a vampire works in a funeral company) or “men are loved ones” (1970) by Eckhart Schmidt (women can men can men shrink after sex and pack it into a suitcase), but above all from the East German films. Compared to the western Wir-Hauen-UNS-SEITE-head-one atmosphere, the GDR appears here as a peaceful, almost cheerful place. A country that sometimes also made fun of his own social narrow -mindedness, about the bureaucratic will for the tendency of all life, as a slapstick, as “Nelken in Aspik” (1976) proves by Günter Reisch. Armin Müller-Stahl is silent in the career-of all people in the advertising industry. A draftsman who otherwise only tells nonsense is damn silent due to sudden dental problems and thus brings it to the general director who is said to be lonely genius. Opportunism can be very funny. When he can speak again, it logically goes downhill.

Also noteworthy is the happy feminism of the self-confident working woman, both in the car company, in “Hat if you kiss” (1971) by Rolf Losansky, as well as in early women’s football in “Not cheating, darling!” Joachim Hasler. In this brightly colored musical from a sunny provincial location called Sonnethal about socialism, sport and couple relationships, petty -bourgeois life is vibrating. A lot seems possible, not only the love between the then pop star couple Frank Schöbel and Chris Doerk, who compete against each other in various peer groups, but of course sing together.

In this film, the relaxed enthusiasm of the World Festival in East Berlin 1973, a conflict for money and resources between a mayor (Karel Fiala), who only has the local football club in mind and the new university director (Doris Gäbler) that comes into town And which is denied the service because it is intended for a football coach. She does not want to be offered – to be heard, she founds a women’s football team. A sensational move against men’s society. The new wind sweeps you through your long hair. Maybe you should let your own grow again to get a feeling for it?

The retrospective will be opened on Friday with “the tenderness of the wolves”, at 8:30 p.m. in the German Kinemathek