Spring Takes Time
(Der Frühling braucht Zeit)
Der Frühling braucht Zeit © DEFA-Stiftung, Kurt Schütt
| Stahnke, Günter |
| Lauterbach, Hermann O. |
| Schwalbe, Konrad |
| Pioch, Bruno |
| Wallstein, Hans-Joachim |
| Lehmphul, Erika |
| Sasse, Hans-Jürgen |
| Kranz, Georg |
| Gründel, Dorit |
| Siebholz, Gerhard |
| Eppers, Kurt |
| Abeßer, Doris |
| Barthel, Kurt |
| Hardt-Hardtloff, Hans |
| Hoppe, Rolf |
| Klein, Erik S. |
| Kraus, Agnes |
| Mellies, Eberhard |
| Née, Elfriede |
| Richter, Friedrich |
| Runkehl, Karla |
| Scholz, Heinz |
| Schön, Horst |
| Simon, Günther |
| Hermann, Heinz |
| DEFA Studio for Feature Films |
Synopsis
Was it an act of sabotage or willful negligence? The non-party engineer Heinz Solter is suddenly arrested and accused of approving a defective pipeline that caused a half million loss to his company. At first, the case seems clear-cut for the state prosecutor, but when he probes deeper, he discovers that Solter had acted against his better judgment due to the pressure from his career-driven and authoritarian boss.
The film, based on an actual crime case, was banned shortly after its release for its critical examination of the problems of a planned economy and the extremely stylized avant-garde imagery. The scathing criticism unintentionally complemented the film by accusing it of stylistic affinities to Antonioni and Fellini.
The DVD also includes Monolog for a Taxi Driver (GDR, TV, 1962, dir. Günter Stahnke). Officials labeled the short written by Günter Kunert as Kafkaesque and banned it in 1962.
Awards
| 1990 | FIPRESCI Prize – Honorable Mention, Forum of New Cinema, Berlin International Film Festival |
| 1990 | Interfilm Award – Honorable Mention, Forum of New Cinema, Berlin International Film Festival |
Press comments
“The film is reminiscent in subject matter to the Czechoslovakian film Obžalovaný (Defendant) by Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos.”
— Der Spiegel, 1990
“The stark, expressionistic arrangements in impersonal and indistinctive interiors created an austere, filmic appeal that departed from the narrative conventions of the time.”
— Günter Agde, film historian
“The film shed a critical light on the New Economic System and its fixation on production quotas.”
— Sabine Hake, German National Cinema
“A film that touched too closely on the contradictions inherent in implementing the New Economic System [in the GDR].”
— DEFA: East German Cinema 1946-1992
“Stahnke’s narration makes clear that it’s not an individual case, rather—using a certain stylistic aesthetic—a general one. The director has people act in front of white walls, shows the alienation, misunderstandings, and the camera emphasizes the distant relationships. Using an anti-psychological script, he uncovers defects in communication.”
— Rolf Richter, Berliner Rundfunk
Related Materials
Availability
- New digitally restored transfer
- Biographies & Filmographies
- Günter Stahnke on His Film, 2014, 12 min.
- “Synonym and Signal,” by Detlef Kannapin, film historian
- “Constructive Stylization,” by Annette Dorgerloh, Humboldt University Berlin
- “The Late Spring,” by Dieter Wolf, former head of artistic group Babelsberg
- Original Posters (1965 and 1990)
- Gallery of Sketches. Courtesy of Georg Kranz, set designer.
- Monolog for a Taxi Driver (GDR, 1962, dir. Günter Stahnke, 37 min, script: Günter Kunert, 37 min, B&W, TV, English subtitles)
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