PANKOW 95

Germany, 1983, 80 minutes, Colour.
Heck (Dieter Thomas Heck), Udo Kier, Christine Kaufmann.
Directed by Gabor Altorjay.

Pankow 95 is an eccentric, experimental science fiction film satirising East Berlin. The film has overtones of George
Orwell's 1984.

Director Gabor Altorjay was working in Germany's 'underground' film industry. His star Udo Kier appeared in such films as The Story of O and Andy Warhol's Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula. The film also features German pop star Heck (Dieter 'Thomas' Heck). The film is a Film Festival offering and popular with 'alternate' cinema theatres.

1. Interesting? Enjoyable? Eccentric? For what audience was the film made?

2. The West German film industry? Its attitude towards East Germany? The attitude taken towards totalitarian regimes? The use of science fiction for satire? Test tube music theories? The satire of the 'nerve clinic'?

3. The cinema styles: realism, futuristic devices, video? The blend of these styles? Musical score ? the German pop style?

4. Pace and editing? The devices for thriller films? Dramatics? The conventions of science fiction? Serious or not?

5. The 1995 setting: the hints about wars, test-tube science, totalitarianism, musical theories, hospitals, Serotinen tests etc.? The sets, costumes, decor of 1995?

6. The similarities with the '80s when the film was made: cast, decor, processes, people etc.?

7. The focus on Zart: prisoner. normal, composer, illness, Armin, other people in his life, his wife, Serotinen, the visits, the plan, the execution, hostages, the wife and the film? The interview and the explanations? The hints about Armin?

8. Armin: information about the test tube. the baby, growth, the colour green and his appearance. dreams. the attack of the pregnant woman, surrealist style, grief, genius, the escape?

9. Lajos and women? The focus on sex? The background of Argentina and the Falklands war? Father? Dream and sexuality?

10. The wife and her dutiful attitudes? The operation? Astor? The escape and the film? Astor left and his wife pregnant? Loving attitude? Transition to Armin? Non-violence and violence?

11. The staff and their behaviour, idiocy. their being mocked? The doctor and the Head of State? Psychoanalysis? Operations. tests? The other doctors?

12. The background of hospital life and its artificiality? The attention to detail ? and the touch of satire?

13. The build-up to the escape? Tropical islands? The magazine story and ending?

14. The film as clever? Science fiction jokiness?