Under the Bridges

"Under the Bridges", made in the last year of the Third Reich, proves that artistic genius can flourish even under the most difficult circumstances. The film completely transcends its time and presents a simple love story, the themes of which are universal. Through both his settings and his actors, Kautner achieves a naturalism which has seldom been equaled. That he managed to do this in 1944-45 Germany is almost unbelievable. A fortunate and unexpected treasure from a most unfortunate time.

Another comment said that this film "completely transcends its time". That's true, but I wonder how the contemporary audience interpreted this "transcendence". Was not-talking-about-war in the last days of WW2 understood as talking about war in a different way or simply as escapism?

Under the Bridges is another fantastic film from German director Helmut Kautner. The plot of the film centers on a barge on the waterways of Germany in some unidentified time and the relationship between the two owners of the boat. This relationship becomes strained, and develops into a classic love triangle, when a woman comes on board and stays with them for a short time. As is usual of Kautner's films the characters are highly sympathetic and their relationships very realistic and well thought out. Almost anyone can identify with at least one of these archetypal main characters, whether it is the "Damsel in Distress" Anna, the "Loner with a Heart of Gold" Hendrick, or the "Nice Guy" Willy.

The most interesting factor in this film though is one that happens off screen. Filmed in 1945, and often interrupted by overhead allied bombers, this was one of the final films to pass the censors of the Third Reich in March 1945, the month before the suicide of Adolf Hitler and the soon following German surrender. Despite the pervasiveness of the looming military and political disaster that was apparent in Germany at the time the present is entirely absent from the film. The plot takes place in some sort of time out of time that is familiar and identifiable as some time in 20th century Germany, but this is only a vague placement. The timeless quality so embraced is indicative of Kautner's desire to remain apolitical during the war and to remain simply a filmmaker. The blissful ignorance of the film's contemporary political reality gives the film a very escapist quality, a very probable goal of Kautner's.

This film taken in its historical context has a very important message. It seems to largely be saying that no matter what happens on the world stage we are all still human and that no matter what befalls us we continue to survive, thrive, live, and love. This attitude towards human life is something that gives Kautner's films their human quality; that certain feeling that comes through them which seems to say "Despite all that happens, we must maintain hope."

Made in the last year of the Third Reich by Helmut Käutner, one of the major figures of post-War German cinema, UNDER THE BRIDGES decisively shucks off its cardinal historical hallmark and taps into an alternative realm where warfare and defeatism make no trespass in its blueprint. A proletarian love triangle between one woman and two men which predates Truffaut's JULES AND JIM (1962), but in Käunter's head space, ménage à trois is a too risqué cop-out, monogamy is still the keynote and one of the two men must be friend-zoned.

The two bachelors are Hendrik (Raddatz) and Willy (Knuth), good friends and co-owners of a towed barge, who lament that living and working on the Havel river has taken a heavy toll on their chance of meeting a decent woman and getting married. Even their taste for the opposite sex is quite similar, both dally with a waitress called Vera (Grabley), who cannot choose between them because sometimes she cannot tell them apart, so naming a fatty goose Vera is their petty revenge, and Vera the goose will meet a very sorry ending when the suitors move onto their next target.

One night, they accidentally clock that there is a distressed girl leaning on the bridge's balustrade and it seems that she is going to jump but instead, she drops a 10-mark note into the water. And in the quirks of fate, the young girl Anna (Schroth) takes shelter on their barge while they sail toward Berlin where she lives on her lonesome. Both men take a fancy to her, whereas Anna is too defensive to reciprocate hers, and after learning that she earns her 10 marks from modeling, it casts a shadow on their courtship, and strains the bonhomie between the two men, whereupon Willy abandons their Amsterdam freight delivery and stays in Berlin with Anna, but her heart wants what it wants (a little friction is always the best catalyst of romance), three months later, everyone will find his or hers right place, on the barge of course.

Gauged as a progenitor of poetic realism, UNDER THE BRIDGES is visibly eking out its skimpy sustenance but graced with a beguiling silver allure (although the restoration is far from immaculate) through its embracing of both classic stock-in-trade (soft focus, glamorous close-ups, stark chiaroscuro) and unconventional montage choices (Dutch angles, heady editing, rustling flashback shots etc.), and remarkably, Käunter holds the central story tenably empathetic through its rational building of his three protagonists' inscape. Hannelore Schroth comports herself as a melancholic damsel-in-distress, but not without touching niceties; Carl Raddatz gives a convincing turn in solidifying Hendrik's amenable yet skeptical make-up and Gustav Knuth zippily runs away with his avuncular innocuousness.

In a word, UNDER THE BRIDGES is a heart-winning romantic imbroglio level-headedly earns its auspicious ending fair and square, a fitting morale booster and divertissement to its frazzled populace of the time.

Hendrik and Willi are co-owners of a cargo barge on the German River Havel. Goods are sent along the river's lifeline to the major ports of Germany. Rotterdam to Berlin and back again. Life is good on the river as far as it goes yet something is missing. Quick jump-offs in the towns along the way become habit. Loneliness can be baggage that we all pack unwittingly. Hendrik played by Carl Raddaz, realizes that real life is going by without them. Especially absent is the company of true female companionship. The river becomes a willing partner to the player who wishes to tempt fate for the rewards of life.

Fate draws a 'pat hand' when late one evening, from the moored barge, a pretty, young women is observed on a bridge ahead. Her lone lamp-lit silhouette showing against the background of night. Appearing distraught, she is crying. The men whisper she might end it all with one last step off the bridge and into cold eternity. Suddenly, she drops something into the black depths below, but by this time our bargemen are there, under the bridge, in their small dingy to retrieve the article. They observe the girl much closer. What to do?

For fate, in it's seeming randomness, allows a new chapter to unfold in three people's lives in post-war Germany. Their meeting becomes a driving gamble of need, and hope. The reward of human companionship, acceptance and the search for true happiness becomes a riddle these players must unravel only to discover that everyone are amateurs in this pageant. What are the mysterious steps required to win the battle over an almost predestined lonely future?

Director Helmut (The Devil's General) Kutner's allegorical tale is a canvas of light and shadow. Mixing pre-war German Industrial high-contrast themes with a kind of pre-natal Cinema Verite he presumes life's outward evidence of happiness is salted with an inner, lonely core which cannot be purged until the lessons of hope are proffered and dangled to the whole world to judge these volunteer competitors. Win or lose? Is the game worth the reward? You 'betcha!