Die innere Sicherheit (2000)

Director:

Christian Petzold

Writers:

Harun Farocki (co-writer)
Christian Petzold (writer)

Release Date:

1 February 2001 (Germany)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Clara and Hans are left-wing terrorists, who are chased by the police since almost fifteen years. The...

Plot Keywords:

Bank | RAF Terrorist | RAF | Rote Armee Fraktion | Terrorism

Awards:

9 wins & 5 nominations

Cast

Julia Hummer	...	Jeanne
Barbara Auer	...	Clara
Richy Müller	...	Hans
Bilge Bingul	...	Heinrich
Rogério Jacques	...	Dieb
Maria João	...	Concierge
Vasco Machado	...	Polizist
Noberto Paula	...	Schläger
Bernd Tauber	...	Achim
Katharina Schüttler	...	Paulina
Günther Maria Halmer	...	Klaus
Inka Löwendorf	...	Mädchen in der Schule
Manfred Möck	...	Lehrer
Marc Sönnichsen	...	Heinrichs Freund
Ingrit Dohse	...	Restaurant-Managerin

Also Known As:

The State I Am In (Australia) (TV title) (International: English title)

Runtime:

106 min

Country:

Germany

Language:

German

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Australia:M

Filming Locations:

Algarve, Portugal

Company:

Schramm Film

Trivia:

First part of director Christian Petzold's "Gespenster"-trilogy. The other two parts are Yella (2007) and Gespenster (2005).

Goofs:

Plot holes: The fugitives make a big fuss of remaining a low profile, yet they never buckle up when driving. This behavior increases the probability of a random stop by a police patrol immensely.

Movie Connections:

Features Nuit et brouillard (1955)

Soundtrack:

How Can We Hang On Te A Dream

Lost in transition

Formally, "Die Innere Sicherheit" is a road-movie, it shows in a kind of natural suspense the life of a young family, of Hans and Carla and their 15years old daughter Jeanne (who is supposed to have a French name but mispronounces it). The family has never rest, the flight is how they are living. When they sleep, one of them has always to stay awake in order to pay attention if nobody shows up. Although the movie does not give any hints in which time the story plays, it is to assume that it is contemporaneous with the time when the movie was shot, thus in 2000. Hans and Carla are terrorists and work in the "underground". From the commentary of the director, Christian Petzold, we learn that they belong to the RAF (Red Army Fraction) who was responsible for many assassinations and other terrorist acts in the 70ies and 80ies. The RAF itself was convinced that Germany is ruled by the successors of the Nazis and therefore the government is illegal. However, Hans and Carla seem to be decades too late, they appear in their present like lost from their past, more precisely: lost in transition before their enemies who would treat them like normal criminals in order not to glorify the Baader-Meinhof clan. When Hans and Carla need help and contact their former collaborators, it turns out that they are either since long time not in business anymore or turned in their hopelessness into drinkers. (I am convinced that in the character of Klaus a once very famous German publisher is accurately portrayed: He ended on a park bench in the "Tiergarten" with bottles of red wine around him.) For the daughter, however, the life of her parents becomes more and more intolerable. She cannot make any friends, and when she does, she does not see them anymore, because the steady flight is moving them from nowhere to nowhere. She cannot go regularly to school and is taught basically by her mother. Although the parents are supposed to be adherents of the once famous "laissez-faire"-education, they use police-interrogation methods when they want to find out whom Jeanne contacted and with whom she slept. Both parents smoke, but the daughter is not supposed to. Some of the former RAF-adherents have turned into Neo-Nazis.

I recommend this movie highly. The story develops out of itself, there are no commentaries, no artificially built-in suspense, no pretentiousness. It is true, the movie is dark and depressive, but also soothingly anti-Hollywood. Christian Petzold has already given us such excellent movies like "Cuba Libre", "Wolfsburg", "Toter Mann", the marvelous "Yella" and, most lately, "Jerichow" which is to appear on DVD. So I am looking forward to the upcoming works of this highly promising director.