DER ROTE KAKADU (THE RED COCKATOO)

Germany, 2006, 129 minutes, Colour.
Max Riemelt, Jessica Schwarz, Ronald Zehrfeld.
Directed by Dominik Graf.

Many German audiences and many from around the world have found stories of East Germany and the Berlin Wall continually fascinating. This is one of those stories. It has a poignancy because the protagonists in 1961 were barely twenty. When the wall came down and they took stock of how the separation had affected their lives, they were almost fifty. Three decades of their vital years had been affected.

The setting is the few months of the summer of 1961 before the wall went up in August. While it was a police state and citizens mouthed socialist principles and a suspicion of the west, many of the younger generation had never been there, not even to West Berlin. Yet, rock and roll seemed here to stay. The youngsters loved it, danced to it, flocked to bars and clubs. But, the police trampled the records and the record players, beat the students and soon a serious gloom was to settle on the east.

The Red Cockatoo was one of those clubs, a kind of refuge for Siggi, a young man from a country village who is apprenticed as a theatre designer in Dresden, for Wolle a tearaway type who has married the handicapped, Luise, who works in a schnapps factory and is loved by Siggi. There are a number of others in the circle, especially the lead singer in the club band.

As the screen points out continually that there were only fewer and fewer weeks until the Berlin wall went up, we see the young people in love, clashing, in fear, wary of informers, arrested, tried, sentenced and some escaping to the west while others were trapped and never seen again.

While there is a lightheartedness of youth about the story, it is also sad and, in retrospect, audiences now wonder how people tolerated this harsh, unfeeling regime with its sealed borders, its police patrols and where even a book of poems can be the cause of life changing suffering. A film which is interesting, entertaining and saddening.

1.Audience interest in the past of Germany, East Germany, the wall? For German audiences? World audiences? For Berliners? A popular treatment of these themes?

2.The re-creation of 1961, East Germany, the city of Dresden, the scenes in Berlin, East and West? Costumes and décor?

3.The importance of music, the rock ‘n roll, its being forbidden in the GDR? The nightclubs, The Red Cockatoo, the daring of playing the music? The range of music from Jerome Kern to traditional music? The dancing? The music as symbol for East and West?

4.The time indicators, moving steadily towards the building of the wall? Audiences knowing what the results would be? Watching the characters who don’t know?

5.The contrast with life in West Berlin, the shops and the lights, Kurfestendam, the lavish hotels? So many people in East Germany not knowing what this life was like?

6.The checkpoints, the soldiers, stern, with binoculars? Their signals about people returning to the East? The searches? The skills in smuggling? Siggi and his smuggling the money back? Pretending his arm was broken? The police in East Germany, the smashing of the records and the record players, the bashing of the students? The arrests, the interrogations? Spies reporting to the Stasi? The information, the deals, the files? Life in a police state? The socialist goals, people’s loyalty to these goals, but their drab life?

7.Youth in 1961, not yet twenty at that time, twenty-eight years later and their adulthood having passed when the wall came down?

8.The picture of escaptes, opportunities and methods? The 1961 closure of the wall? It going up – and people leaping over the wall at the last moment? The incident with the dog leaping?

9.Siggi’s story: the small-town boy, the farm, his hopes, coming to Dresden, his theatre apprenticeship, his opera-singing aunt and her connections, at home, the meals and their sparseness, at the theatre, the rehearsals, his building the décor and the elephant? The new director, his promises, being accepted for the course? The new director’s advances – and Siggi later using this to blackmail him? Life in the theatre? Supervised by the Stasi?

10.Siggi and his first meeting with Luise, listening to the records, her not being able to dance, the young people dancing silently on the lawn, the records arriving, the police smashing, bashing? The escape? The encounter with Wolle? Luise married to him? Siggi’s infatuation with her, her relationship with her husband? Their all meeting at The Red Cockatoo? Siggi and his infatuation with Luise? Friendship with Wolle? But shocked by Wolle’s promiscuous behaviour, with the singer, with the theatre secretary? Wolle’s cavalier attitude and explanations?

11.The Red Cockatoo: a haven for youth, the manager and his coping, the band and the singer? The songs, rock 'n roll, Elvis Presley? The old tunes? The dancing and excitement? The arrival of the official, the demonstration of the traditional dancing, staid? The authorities, Wolle urinating in the glass and the official drinking – and his later revenge? The Red Cockatoo as a refuge? Suspicions that the singer was a spy? The factory owner’s son turning out to be the spy? The last haven of this kind of life before the sealing off of East Germany?

12.Siggi and his friends, with Wolle and the singer? With the theatre secretary? His own sexual behaviour? But his regard for Luise? Going for a swim with her? His visits to the West, taking the porcelain, selling in the West, smuggling the money back? His being a big spender at the club? Going to the poetry reading – and Wolle’s making noise and hurting Luise? His going to the printer for a quote? Printing the book, no permissions, giving it as a gift to Luise, her putting it in the water, her being sorry, getting the book back? This leading to the police, the arrest, the interrogations, the trial?

13.Luise and her disability, her working in the schnapps factory, married to Wolle? Her making allowances? The attraction towards Siggi, the poetry, inviting him to her reading? Her anger with Wolle? The book, her disbelief? Her finally believing Siggi’s story, helping him to escape, promising to come, her being trapped, her existing as young and only in his memory?

14.Wolle and his being loud, impetuous, sexual partners, married to Luise, jealous of her, ignoring her poetry, his work in the factory? The range of friends? Life at The Red Cockatoo? His sneering at authorities, his arrest, torture? The trial, his running and being shot? The impact of this shooting in disillusioning Luise about East Germany and socialism?

15.The factory owner, the opportunities to go to the West, his son, his being part of the crowd, the truth about his being an informer, his father’s escape and slapping him in West Berlin?

16.The singer, jovial, the band? Their being prohibited from playing?

17.The arrests, Wolle’s challenge, challenging Siggi, Siggi giving himself up, the group and the arrest, the different sentences? Interrogations?

18.The trial, Siggi and his escape? Going to West Berlin, his plans, his work in the hotel, his subsequent life, art – but never seeing Luise again?

19.A memoir of a significant period in East Germany’s history? In unified Germany’s history?