This documentary shows how the Berliner workers lived in 1930. The director Slatan Dudow shows through images: a) the workers leaving the factory; b) the raise of the rents; c) the "unpleasant" guest, meaning the justice officer that brings the eviction notice; d) the fight of classes of the houses of capitalists and working classes; e) the parks of the working class; f) the houses of the working class, origin of the tuberculosis and the victims; g) the playground of the working class; h) the swimming pool for the working class, ironically called the "Baltic Sea" of the working class; i) the effects of humidity of basement where a family lives, with one member deaf; j) one working class family having dinner while the capitalist baths his dog; k) the eviction notice received from an unemployed family and their eviction.
Direction
Dudow's ruthless editing weaponizes contrast.
Cinematography
Capitalist dog bath vs. worker dinner—iconic.
Director
Slatan Dudow
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Funded by the German Communist Party, this was literal revolutionary cinema—screened at workers' halls, not theatres. Dudow was Brecht's collaborator and would later direct the first DEFA feature.
The 'unpleasant guest' officer became a recognizable archetype in Weimar cinema; audiences reportedly hissed at screenings. Film was banned immediately after 1933.
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