The Gleiwitz Case [GDR 1961]

Der Fall Gleiwitz
Director: G. Klein
Cinematographer: J. Čuřík

Directly inspired by Vláčil and Čuřík's The White Dove, this film tells the story of the staged attack on the Gleiwitz radio station that was used as a pretence for the fascist invasion of Poland. Klein recruited Čuřík for the cinematography after seeing The White Dove, and therefore while the cinematography is quite different to that film, this is very much a carefully composed and highly visual film.

The film is actually relatively short, and apparently Klein reduced it as much as he could without making it too short to be released as a feature film. Unlike The White Dove, this film does have a much clearer and more ordinary plot; but like that film it is really a story of something much more abstract than it seems. We learn rapidly about the life of the Nazi officer in charge of the operation, Naujocks, in a very abstract way how he was led into fascism, anti-semitism, etc., how he wants a promotion. We see the demonstrations of strength, of discipline, order, and it all seems to somehow stand for the much larger process of what was happening to Germany in general, as well as being the perverse psychological story of an individual. And we repeatedly come back to the man who will inevitably be murdered for the purpose of the operation at the climax of the film; somehow each time we come back to him we can sense something like this although he is not at all developed as a character.

All the while we are being pulled inevitably toward the conclusion, and the conclusion is--43 million dead. Only then does it seem clear that this film seems to be a study of the first death in that war as a way of making one of that huge number come into focus; only then does it become clear that the film is also a psychology of the buildup to the war. That is, while this film is about a concrete historical moment and a particular and living trauma, it is deeper and more abstract statement than a simple retelling of the story.

Visually, the fact that the film is full of dialogue, plot, and busyness makes it more difficult to concentrate on the camera work than in The White Dove. The camera moves far more and far more quickly in this film, also using a few brilliant sequences of motion, particularly car and train motion, and marching. There is also a slightly more eclectic style, for example a sequence of grotesque celebration faintly reminiscent of the style of Eisenstein's capitalists in Strike or the echo in Kachyňa's The Ear.

Perhaps the most obvious visual motif is that of vertical compartmentalised spaces--not exactly bars, but rather vertical spaces separated by bars, with people operating within the spaces. Only Naujocks is at one point able to freely cross through these segments, giving a striking impression both of his apparent power and of his real character as trapped just like all the rest. The vertical spaces are also very much complemented by classical vertical symbolism of columns, conveying the absurd power of it all and making it clear how tragically nonsensical it is.

The death at the end is carried off in a highly effective sequence. While the gunshot creates a spiraling death in the style of Kalatozov and Urusevsky in both The Cranes Are Flying and I Am Cuba, the spiral is more kaleidoscopic, prolonged, and violent; and it somehow naturally transforms into the shot of Naujocks holding the gun ominously over a background of his men; this shot then fixes and the auditory transformation occurs--the Nazi hymn, and the words '43,000,000 dead'. An absolutely strong sequence that not only wraps up the film perfectly but actually reshapes the whole of what we have just seen.

Another brilliant auditory and visual sequence is one in which the man to be killed is being transported, blindfolded, by car to his destination; we see his blindfold, his hands clenched together nervously, all the things he would see if he could see out the window of the car. The implication is clear: although drugged, he can hear these things, feel them, imagine what is out there, and he knows somehow they are the last ones he will hear or see. The sequence culminates brilliantly on a shot of the car stopped at train tracks, with the train cutting a dramatic diagonal line across the screen, the sounds of soldiers singing a Nazi hymn morphing into the chugging sounds of the train until the two become one. Again this plays into the dark inevitability of the whole thing, and contributes to our sense of this man's helplessness.

It must be said that Klein and Čuřík have achieved here something more than either a dramatic telling of a story or an abstract psychological piece. There is some of both in here, and there is also a deeply visual and auditory element that is strongly intertwined with the rest. The film is also admirably short, and not terribly dense, making it perhaps deceptively simple. A very interesting film, and not only for its comparisons with Čuřík's earlier work.