“Not just a film that appealed to my cinematic sensitivity but also captured my heart with both hands and squeezed it tightly.”

When Oscar-nominated filmmaker Wim Wenders declared, during the Jury’s opening press conference in Berlin, that as filmmakers “we have to stay out of politics,” he might have been referring to a long-standing tradition in German cinema. Ever since their image as a country went south in the mid-1930s due to one specific political figure who also used cinema as his own form of propaganda, German filmmakers have avoided hitting the nail — here substituting for a political subject — right on the head. Much as in Iranian cinema, and at times North African films, political ideas and ideals are indeed present in a lot of the work of German filmmakers, but often hidden behind oblique storylines that don’t appear political at first.

As I made my way out of the screening room at the end of a showing of Eva Trobisch’s third feature, the Berlinale Competition title Home Stories, I heard two of my colleagues discuss how they could not identify the main story within the East Berlin-born helmer’s film. To those unfamiliar with the elliptical quality I mentioned above, the tale of a young woman’s exploration of what makes her unique, after she is asked to describe her individuality during an on-air audition for a TV talent show, might appear casual, even cryptic. What surrounds Lea (Frida Hornemann) is a chaotic dysfunctional family, where all the members display some form of mild mental anguish. The solution to the riddle of the story and its significance lies in the paragraphs above. And I’ll admit I loved watching a film which allowed me, as a viewer, to find my way through the labyrinth of its meaning by piecing together my own history with what I was witnessing on screen. When the song ‘Und Er Geht Und Er Singt’ (by Leo Poll and Raymond Asso; translated by Thomas Woitkewitsch), sung by Herman van Veen, comes on it is so devastatingly on point that I found myself crying big, heavy tears.

Around Lea, there are mom Rieke (Gina Henkel) and dad Matze (Max Riemelt), who are separated while Rieke is pregnant with another man’s child. Her grandparents are struggling to keep up their country hotel, complete with a horse stable, and Lea’s best friend Bonny only has eyes for her cousin Edgar, who is a teenage mess. The only person who seems to get her is Lea’s aunt Kati (Eva Löbau), who is in charge of renovating a rundown castle in the center of their town. While this could easily be a tale of Western Germany, what makes the film grab onto additional poignancy and provides yours truly with the roadmap to comprehending its genius, is the fact that the story takes place in and around the city Greiz in Thuringia, in the eastern part of East Germany. Starting to put the puzzle together?

PTSD is part of the DNA of most German families. Our relatives either had to flee, becoming instant refugees often without a passport for decades, or for those who stayed the descendants have had to grapple with the guilt of what happened under their ancestors’ watch. And while most audiences viewing a film may be aware of this when it comes to the West German people, a layer of extra damage and trauma is added when someone hails from East Germany. An area which suffered twice, first under the Gestapo, and more recently under the Stasi.

Before her grandfather introduced Trobisch to the place, she admits in her director’s statement, “I associated the “East” with the sprawling plains of Brandenburg or Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, but I did not know this dense, stately city in the middle of a deep forest. There are ravishing Art Nouveau boulevards, but they are completely empty. No cars, no people, young birch trees growing out of a few villas. I found it exciting to show unusual pictures of East Germany. Even in its untapped potential – a turn-of-the-century villa where we filmed cost the buyers as much as a parking space would in Munich.” It is this haunting detachment from the world which creates the chaos around Lea, although she herself might finally hail from a generation that is benefitting from globalization. It is this word, often the cause of protests, which provides a possible salvation for the East Germans, a people traumatized twice and blamed a hundred times. Incidentally, my German family hailed from Leipzig, which was also part of East Germany following WWII and not far from where Home Stories takes place. Leipzig famously had pro-Jewish mayors, including my great-grandfather, and boasted a large and prosperous Jewish community until the early 1930s.

Acted subliminally by all involved, including a tour-de-force performance by theater actress Hornemann as Lea, and filmed intimately by cinematographer Adrian Campean, I found Home Stories not just a film that appealed to my cinematic sensitivity but also captured my heart with both hands and squeezed it tightly. It is a quiet masterpiece that requires a little thinking with its entertainment and rewards the viewer who discovers its hidden mysteries with many gifts. And yes, it is political, but subtly so, without pushing its agenda in your face.

(c) Image copyright – Adrian Campean / Trimafilm