Kameradschaft (1931)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Georg Wilhelm Pabst

Writers:

Peter Martin Lampel (writer)
Karl Otten (writer)

Release Date:

17 November 1931 (Germany)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Plea against war and for friendship between peoples, through the story of french miners rescued by german colleagues after a firedamp explosion.

Plot Keywords:

Border | Rescue | Explosion | Fire | WWI

Cast

Alexander Granach	...	Kasper
Fritz Kampers	...	Wilderer
Ernst Busch	...	Wittkopp
Elisabeth Wendt	...	Frau Wittkopp
Gustav Püttjer	...	Kaplan
Oskar Höcker	...	Obersteiger
Daniel Mendaille	...	Jean Leclerc
Georges Charlia	...	Emile
Andrée Ducret	...	Françoise
Alex Bernard	...	Grand-père, le vieux mineur
Pierre-Louis	...	Georges - le petit galibot
Héléna Manson	...	Rose, la femme du mineur blessé
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Gerhard Bienert
Marguerite Debois
Adolf Fischer
Friedrich Gnaß
Georg Guertler
Willem Holsboer	...	Ingenieur des deutschen Bergwerks
Marcel Lesieur	...	Albert
Palmyre Levasseur
Marcel Merminod
Teddy Michaud
Naupel
Reinhardt
Rortais
Franz Schier
Théo Tony
Georges Tourreil	...	L'ingénieur
Richard Weichert
Fritz Wendhausen	...	Direktor des deutschen Bergwerks

Also Known As:

Comradeship
La tragédie de la mine (France)

Runtime:

93 min | USA:86 min (Janus print)

Country:

Germany | France

Language:

French | German

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:TV-14 (TV rating)

Filming Locations:

Gelsenkirchen, North Rhine - Westphalia, Germany

Company:

Nero-Film AG

Trivia:

First film of Pierre-Louis.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood" (1995)

German film merged with the style of Italian Neo-Realism

This film, along with WESTFRONT 1918, are my favorite Pabst-directed films and I enjoyed them more than his much more famous films which starred Louise Brooks (such as PANDORA'S BOX). It's probably because both are very similar to the Neo-Realist films that the Italians perfected in the 1940s and 50s. This style film called for using non-actors (just typical folks) in everyday settings in order to create intensely involving and realistic films.

In this case, the film is about French and German coal miners, so appropriately, the people in the roles seem like miners--not actors. The central conflict as the film begins is that there is a huge mine located on the Franco-German border. Instead of one big mine, it is divided at the border and German workers are not welcome in the French mine, despite there being greater unemployment in Germany. This, language differences (illustrated wonderfully in a dance hall scene) and WWI conspire to create a huge rift between the factions--resulting in a WE vs. THEY mentality. Later, an explosion causes a huge collapse in the French and the Germans refuse to sit back and do nothing. Risking their own lives, they prove that there is true comradeship between miners and men in general.

The film is a strong criticism of xenophobia and tried, in vain, to get the German audiences to see the futility of war and hatred. It was a gorgeously moving film with some of the scariest and claustrophobic images I have ever seen. Considering history, though, the film's impact was minimal at best. It's a real shame, as like this one, WESTFRONT 1918, JÁACCUSE (Gance) and ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (Milestone) had great messages of peace and harmony but ultimately were failures in positively swaying public opinion. So, from a historical point of view, it's an amazing and sad relic that is well worth seeing.