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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (March 8, 1984)
Thursday, March 8, 1C34 Daily Ncbraskan Pago 13 1 1 i1 Tl Jill .11 U Itsvicw fcy Eric I'ctcrcsn . Two films exploring the problems of independent women, Solo Sunny by Konrad Wolf, and OnPrdxdion, directed by Herrmann Zschoche, are among seven recent films from East Germany in a series playing at the Sheldon Film Theater this wecU, "Toward a New Social Cinema." In Solo Sunny, a pop singer sees her professional and personal life fly apart, partly through social harrassment of single women and partly through social harrassment of single women and partly through her own irresponsibility. In On Probation, the same sort of char acter, both harrassed and irresponsi ble, loses control of her family. Both main characters have enough iuts to begin picking up the pieces of their lives. SoloSunny plays Saturday afternoon at 3, and On Probation shows Thurs day at 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. Saturday. Other films in the series include Mama, I'm Alive, also by Konrad Wolf, at 1 p.m. Saturday, Anton the Magi cian, by Guntcr Ecbch, at 1 p.m. Thurs day and 5 p.m. Saturday, the Fiancee by Gunter Reisch and Gunther Rucker, at 3 p.m. Thursday and 7 p.m. Satur day, Ikarus, by Heiner Carow, at 7 p.m. Thursday and 9 pm. Friday, cndApprvhcn sion by Lothar Warneke, at 9 p.m. Thursday and 7 p.m. Friday. All screen ings are at the Sheldon Film Theater, and cost $3 each. A festival pass can be bought for $10. The series has been programmed and coordinated by the American Film Institute in coopera tion with the State Film Archive of the German Democratic Republic." Solo Sunny begins with a look at the cheap thrills of a provincial variety show. A tinkling piano and still emcee introduce an uninspiring band, a dully choreographed gymnastics routine and Sunny, a singer played by Renate Krossner. While Sunns performance never seems as good . as she thinks it is there is self-consciousness which sucks the energy out of her singing Krossner is able to put considerable interest into the role through the char acter's mercurial temper. . Most of Sunnys energy, in fact, seems to go into building a sense of personal differentiation and picking fights with everybody she comes around is a good way to do it. She leans out of her apartment window as if aware of the interest she adds to the view; then briskly sends her pick-up for the even ing on his way, telling him that break fast and discussion are not included. She glibly escapes hassling by the police . for the neighbors' complaints about loud music, numerous male visitors and pigeons roosting under her win dow making a counter accusation; she puts up a petition for her neighbors to sign saying they are not bothered by her being there - then deliberately steps on her accuser's hand as she walks up the stairs. This kind of brash egotism, which we see throughout the film, is balanced by many scenes of introspection and ques tioning. She looks at herself in the mir rornot at the publicity stills on the wall, but at her own face, in the pres ent moment and sees there none of the pushy certainty that she projects to nearly everybody. She tells one char acter she is unsure if she can really sing, or only dazzle fool them, in other words. Her lover Ralph, played by Alexander Lang, says that being a personality is something to aspire to implying that despite Sunny"s frantic efforts, she hasn't quite made it. Sunnys reactions to men are violent. There is a tense scene where Sunny overpowers one of her fellow enter-, tainers who tries to rape her. A jerk in a bar who takes an uninvited drink from her glass and tries to come on to her gets his glasses neatly ripped in half and stuffed down his shirt. The big relationship in the film is with Ralph, whose taste for Indian music and passive morbidity he often takes leisure walks in cemeteries make him very different from most romantic partners we have come to expect in the movies. Ralph takes some music that Sunny loves that seems to express her being and writes a song in English to it. The intensity of their relation to each other is apparent in the interac tion between Krossner and Lang, who seem to be able to develop a sense of unconventional and healthy experimen tation. When Sunny discovers Ralph with somebody else, however, she busts in the door, seizes her sheets from the frightened girl, and rages out. It seems to be her way to once again assert her differentiation: look at the kind of fit I cn throw. This sense of her own fiery nature prevents a reconciliation between herself and Ralph. She takes a knife with her the next time they go to bed, and tells him in the morning she would have killed him if she hadn't fallen asleep. "YouTl land in the gutter or you'll be really great," one of her tea chers told her. It's a lesson she some times questions, but has nevetheless learned by heart. On Probation opens with Nina Kern's case history. A commission of social workers, with two local, private citizen members, is deliberating whether Nina Kern, well played by Katrin Sass, will lose legal control of her children through her own past neglect. Clearly it is Nina's testimony which carries the day she is quiet but usu ally quite equal to the tension of the occasion. She explains her change of mind and heart, her desire to have her children back from the state homes where they are staying at present, by the shock which missing them brought home to her. She brings telling argu ments that she has one stable and strudy boyfriend now whom she does indeed treat almost as a piece of furniture and how she is doing well at her job. Although the didactic, examination-of-a-social-problem element is heavier in On Probation than in Solo Sunny, the personal situation is equally inter esting and perhaps contais the sme ambiguity toward the main character. For like Sunny, Nina seems at times to search for ways to pull her life apart. Considerable attention is paid to the pressure which Nina lives under the incredibly boring job she has washing the outside of subway cars, which she wishes were sometimes blue instead of an ugly yellow; the constant money pressure; the pull she feels toward her id drinking buddies and the former and rather fun promiscuity. However, her thoughtlessness is considerable, and distances viewers from her dilem mas, for which she seems to open her self. The repeated scenes at nightfall, when she lowers a key by a string to her neighbor and friend downstairs so the neighbor will come in to wake her in time for work is one of the keys to both films: an exploration of the refusal to live up to responsibilities in order to retain a personal inde pendence that isn't always enough. l fA ' t' mssoc oi on WE'RE FIGHTING FOR YOUR LIFE ' 1 I r n L ROCK A BILLY AND JUMP-BLUES AT ITS FINEST. MARCH 8,9, 10 $3 THURS., $3.50 FRI.-SA T. 136 ft. K;h J . ' ( -,QOr XT O o SPRING BREAK ! rent a car or van jor t)VVf I Kansas City Swim Florida lliij DM I till i 1 Kansas City 2 days 450 miles gas & tax 7 days Oro. 3500 mi!3S gas & tax ' Sheldon Film Theaira Rencte Krc-cncr and Alexander Lsns n Sunny. - KEN DaraSKEA MEMBER CHRYSLER LEASING Lincoln 1046 "N" 477-7253 Omaha toll free 800 642-1 133 Beatrice 223-5252 B8 J 9
