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The Murderers Are Among Us

The Murderers Are Among Us (1946)

October. 15,1946
|
7.4
| Drama Thriller Romance War

After returning from a concentration camp, Susanne finds an ex-soldier living in her apartment. Together the two try to move past their experiences during WWII.

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k-kotynski
1946/10/15

The film The Murderers are Among Us was the first film to be produced after the Second World War and was also the first film during that period to evaluate the sense of collective guilt among the German people for the atrocities committed in WWII. This film focuses on the character Dr. Mertens, who is a returning soldier after the war. He is plagued by guilt derived from an execution order given by his superior officer, Brückner, which resulted in the death of many women and children. Dr. Mertens eventually finds out that Brückner is still alive and attempts to kill him, however, in the end decides that personal revenge is not the best option, and that wartime offenses are best left punished by the law.This ending is slightly different from the original (in which Dr. Mertens follows through with Brückner's murder), because the Russian occupying power in Germany at the time of its production called for a more constructive approach. The Russians were the only occupying power in Germany to give consent for this films production, because the other occupying powers felt the German people needed to undergo much more post war re-education before they would be ready to produce films free of propaganda. This film was a great first example to show that the German's were capable of producing a film after the war that was both democratic and humanistic. This film also began a trend of "rubble films". Rubble films, such as this one, employ the use of Berlin's demolished buildings to evoke emotion and add a realistic edge to the setting.I personally really enjoyed this film, as the use of rubble throughout the film brought a piece of history to life. This film also successfully gave me another impression of Germany post WWII, that being of a more innocent side of Germany that felt guilt for the atrocities of war, and also a Germany that was taking lawful action against guilty parties. I would recommend this film to anyone who is interested in learning more about German history or WWII history, as it realistically portrays the physical and emotional damages of the war, and also, is itself a historically relevant film, marking the beginning of a new age of German cinema.

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mjb0123
1946/10/16

Unit 5 film discussion Matt Butcher The Murderers Are Among Us is a film made immediately after World War II in East Germany. The melancholy of the film is derived from its main characters, a female concentration camp survivor who returns to her old apartment to find it occupied by an ex-military doctor. This military doctor drives the main conflict of the film in that his conscience is slowly eating away at him for his apparent actions during the war.In this regard, the film acts as a conscience for the people of East Germany, slowly asking themselves about their past and how they are going to live with it. It was a tumultuous period of reconciliation that the Germans were trying to live through. This movie tries to act on those feelings.Silberman notes that another film of this time, Rotation, "constructs a narration based on identification and emotional catharsis rather than on the cognitive terms of epic distanciation." The Murderers Are Among Us also tries to wipe the slate clean. It comes out and admits that what happened was wrong, hence the horrible feelings that the doctor is going through. They cannot completely distance themselves from these previous events, these earth-shattering events, unless they work through these feelings.

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Lee Eisenberg
1946/10/17

Prior to watching "The Murderers Are among Us", I believed something: if you exaggerate, then you'll fail miserably. This movie is possibly the most exaggerated flick of all time. But, it succeeds in every respect. The movie focuses on Susanne, who has spent time in a concentration camp, returning to a bombed-out Berlin after WWII has ended. She meets Dr. Hans Mertens, who is haunted by his deeds during the war, especially since his commanding officer shows no remorse.Given that this was Germany's first movie after WWII, it makes sense that they wanted to show that not all Germans were Nazis, and that they were apologizing for what they had done. But mind you, if you watch "The Murderers Are among Us", it will likely blow your mind, just because of how overdone it is. I guess that Germany will never be able to get over the Third Reich.

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theorbys
1946/10/18

Murderers Among Us is the first film made, of a vast trove of films, in the Soviet controlled sector of post-war Germany that was to become East Germany. It is deeply and masterfully immersed in the aesthetic traditions of German Expressionism and /or Film Noir: unusual angles and picture planes, extreme lighting effects, twisted stairs, bombed-out buildings that look like jagged fingers against the sky (it was shot in the ruins of Berlin), a haunted, tormented protagonist, stark black and white atmosphere, and, above all, shadows. Shadows and more shadows of every size, shape, and density. In fact this film could serve as a text book on shadow craft: the scene where a man is screaming from within the vast shadow of a pistol wielding attacker is magnificent. I haven't seen The Third Man recently but I am sure Murderers influenced it profoundly. I would recommend the Third Man as a good double feature with this film.Murders belongs to a genre called 'rubble films', shot in the rubble of Germany and frequently dealing with issues of German guilt after WW II. Murderers does not seek to deal overmuch with the people who gave the orders, but with the many Germans who followed them with little or no protest. Such as the wounded doctor in this film who stood by while even children were executed as reprisals against resistance fighters in occupied Poland. Plotwise the film works quite nicely, and I liked the atmosphere of renewal, and perhaps relief at the end of a nightmare, amongst all that ruin and rubble as the German people began to pick themselves up.

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