This biographical film is set in 1937, with Fallada suffering the effects of living under a microscope. The film details his decline, as he is intermittently imprisoned and threatened in order to motivate him to write for the Fatherland. Even the attention of his kind, patient wife and loving children begin to feel oppressive to him. This is one of the few films to take a serious, in-depth look at the tribulations of a creative artist pulled in all different directions by the real world.
Acting
Gudzuhn's trembling hands say what dialogue cannot.
Direction
Gräf traps Fallada in doorways, mirrors, cornered frames.
Production
Cramped apartments feel like sets closing in on themselves.
Director
Roland Gräf
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Fallada actually wrote the now-legendary novel Alone in Berlin while monitored by the Gestapo; the film's title refers to his posthumously discovered final manuscript.
East German DEFA studios produced this as a coded critique of their own state's artist control—1988 audiences read between the lines immediately.
DE
