Gundermann (2018)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2018
	Director: Andreas Dresen
	Actors: Alexander Scheer, Anna Unterberger
	Country: D
	Genre: Drama, Romance
	Conditions of visioning: 06.09.2018, Schauburg, German version
Synopsis: The East German singer and writer Gerhard Gundermann (Scheer) struggles with his passion for music, his life engagement as a coal miner, his love for Conny (Unterberger) and his dealings with the secret police of the German Democratic Republic, the STASI.
Review: I found the plot interesting. The inner conflict between wish and expression of real socialism and handling with Sovietism. Living in Germany and often confronted to people mixing socialism and Sovietism, to people full of prejudices with regard to East Germans, I definitely wanted to watch this movie. I heard about this singer only shortly before the movie got released because some East German friends mentioned it. Following Gundermann and his protests against the Soviet regime established in GDR shows strikingly what really makes the difference between the socialism, full of solidarity and humanism and care for the weaker and the Sovietism, full of suspicion and greed for power and lacking humanity. Like in Walesa, the main protagonist signs an agreement with the authorities because these aimed to damp them, but their personality remained the same and this speaks for Walesa and for Gundermann. The story may be a bit slow, but I believe this served my understanding of the mindset and the profound thoughts of the characters. On top of it, the acting itself was matching perfectly the characters. Alexander Scheer as man protesting for his people. Anna Unterberger as muse and balancing element for the Gundermann. They look very authentic.  The photography of the industrial and deserted landscape of the surface coal mining (in German Tagebau) in the Lausitz region, East of Germany, are amazing. It is actually a massive destruction of the environment and every now and then the news report of a village or a forest that will be destroyed in favour of such a surface mining in Germany. This has nevertheless a visual beauty.
Rating: 8 /10