The Tunnel (dir. Roland Suso Richter, 2001)

[GER199]

Please post your reviews of Richter's film and comments on prior reviews under this thread.

[POCKETS]

Ryan Whelan
Klebes
GER 199
Der Tunnel

Der Tunnel
Der Tunnel, translated into english as “the tunnel” is a story about just that, a tunnel. But the what, why, how, where, and when that go into this tunnel make this story something more than extraordinary.
I genuinely enjoyed this movie, as I am a huge fan of personal accounts of major historical events. I was also very impressed with the ingenuity and love that had to go into the physical tunnel. It was an astounding feat of humanity and I was incredibly moved by the way the tunnelers could mesh all their individual goals into one mindset and goal in order to do the undoable and complete the tunnel.
This fact that a group of, until the tunneling, nearly complete strangers could come together and work towards a common goal so unflaggingly really spoke as to how the wall actually made people feel. They say that through struggle comes unity, and this is especially applicable to Der Tunnel, as this group of people who had to overcome and give up so much accomplished something so incredible, all for others. This theme of humanities unbelievable ability to come together was exemplified in this film to an almost unbelievable extent. Each person working to get out a mother, a sister, a wife, a friend, a lover, was driven beyond the natural limits of each person, and even beyond the limits of the surrounding tunnelers.
There is so much love in the world, that even with the kind of oppressive hate that the wall brought down upon the people of germany, love somehow found it’s way across that wall. But in order for love to penetrate the wall some extraordinary people had to come together and dig their own love, and others love, to West Germany.

[Evan]

“The Tunnel” directed by Roland Suso Richter is a story about East Berlin residents escaping to the free West Berlin. This group of people represent many on their quest to freedom, in hopes of leaving the highly controlled society of the East. While this is only a movie, it is based off of the true efforts of some Germans. “The Tunnel” shows the hardship of individuals and families while being separated by the wall. Corola, the wife of Harry Melchoir’s best friend, Matthis, is separated from Matthis when trying to escape through the sewers. While Matthis is in the West, she is held in prison and is threatened to be an informant or else they will take her baby when it is born. Harry struggles to smuggle his sister’s family across the border while Fritzi works on the tunnel to bring her fiance to the West. Many other join them in hopes of bringing loved ones across the wall. Hans-Peter Spitzer lived this adventure when he arranged for his seven year old daughter and himself to be smuggled over the border. His wife was already in the West visiting her aunt, and he left without telling her his plans. Hans-Peter and his daughter were smuggled across the border in a black toyota that belonged to an American, at Checkpoint Charlie the cars of Americans weren’t searched. This was August 1989, only a couple months before the wall fell. “The Tunnel” was set during the months right after the wall was built. This shows that the entire duration of the period when the wall was intact, people made an effort to escape, and “The Tunnel” is a good depiction of the struggles true escapees went through.

[coryg]

Cory Gordon
Klebes
GER 199
Der Tunnel

Der Tunnel, directed by Roland Susco Richter, has been the only made for television movie that I have ever enjoyed. Typically, made-for-TV screenplays are full of the worst of Hollywood, although this film has some strong Americanized Hollywood elements, such as the beautiful tough girl Fritizi being suddenly thrust into a love affair with the main character. However, these flashy and slightly unrealistic themes are intertwined with raw human emotion, tense dramatic scenes, and what all movies strive to be – a realistic yet still gripping account of a true event.
As a partially Americanized but securely Germanized movie, Der Tunnel is a perfect transition from American movies saturated with sexy woman, fast cars, and larger than life themes to more somber, intellectual, but still strongly engaging movies. The jump is often hard to make, from slapstick movies designed for a quick laugh to longer movies that hope to force an unusual perspective on the viewer.
Each scene permeates with actual human feeling, both relatable and larger than anything experienced. The separate of Matthis and Carola – dark lighting, jarring cinematography, with quick bursts of the actual scene portray a real sense of confusion and escape. While very view in the audience have ever actually ran for their lives through a maze of an underground sewer system, all have felt confusion, all have felt the desire to escape, yet rarely have they seen it created in such an immediately understandable way. The genius of this movie is in the scenes, each almost able to stand alone as a short feature film depicting the struggle of a group of individuals.

[bjensvol]

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. Is the beginning of the Declaration of Independence and I believe it ties in very well with this film. The Tunnel, directed by Poland Suso Richter (2001) is a very emotional, dramatic, and long film. The film is based on a true story about a group of East Berliners that desperately attempt to escape to the West. The story of Tunnel is a compelling example of the great feats a group of individuals can achieve under such enormous pressure, and strife. The way the tunnelers managed to unite together under a single mindset in act of defiance against their oppressive government, is sure to be appreciated by Americans, as the characters in the film actively demonstrate the same ideas and values of our founding fathers whom we hold so dearly and in such high regard, as they themselves, found themselves in similar shoes as these individuals. The Declaration of Independence later states: when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. And these people did it!

[Cole]

Der Tunnel is a great movie that I enjoyed very much. It focuses on a group of East Berliners who had already managed to get across the Berlin Wall. Now they are trying to get their loved ones over as well, through a tunnel they are going to dig themselves right under the wall. The plot for this movie is really good and extremely similar to the Great Escape, an American classic. Der Tunnel really shows the conflict the wall caused between the two sides in a real and close kind of way. The movie does a good job of getting the viewer to know the characters so that we feel for them and want what they want. When something doesn’t go right, the viewer is hurt as well. That is a kind of movie I really do like. The use of putting the black and white sections in the movie also brings a more real feel to the film and further connects the viewer to the story. Other movies viewed in the class showed the wall in a way as a motif of the conflict to the story. This movie on the other hand is the conflict. This movie, more than all the others, is based around the wall as the physical obstacle in the movie that needs to be overcome. The movie also does a very good job of showing why the East Berliners want to get across and why the group of West Berliners are digging. The scene with the Fred’s grandmother shooting herself is a perfect example of the stress the East was feeling due to the Stasi. Finally they get the group across and the movie does a good job of making the viewer feel good, because you are glad that nearly everyone got over just fine, that the plan worked, and that it was carried out by just a few regular people who wanted their loved ones to be safe and on the right side of the wall.

[anm]

Der Tunnel is a movie about the struggle that people faces while trying to escape from East Germany. It starts with the main character escaping but still wanting to help his sister escape too. He soon realizes that this is not a task for one person. The movie shows how even if the face of an unwanted situation people come together to work towards a common goal. The movie portrays the hardships that both sides, the Easterners and Westerners, face. It also, of course, shows the negative aspects of the East that people want to escape from. The Eastern party is manipulative toward the people and scream so that they get the out come that they want. They use forms of mental torture towards the people that they are suspicious of. They movies also shows how desperate the people are to flee the East. There are scenes with people trying to crass the border in all sorts of ways: jumping over, driving a bus through, and making fake documents. All of that shows what the movie is trying to portray; desperate times call for desperate measures. The main story like follows the building of the tunnel that will lead their friends, family and even people that they do not know to the West. Even through struggles and set back the people, most of whom do not know each other but have been united under the single goal of “saving” the people form the East, do not give up. This movie is a documentation of the power that they have, and what they are willing to do. And even though the movie focuses on the Westerners, it also shows that the people stuck in the East must remain strong in order to ever escape.

[Astromme]

The tunnel, directed by Roland Suso Richter, is based on an amazing story about a professional swimmer and his courageous plan to help bring his family and friends to the West. Heino Ferch, a controversial athlete sets out to build a tunnel, along with help from his friends, in order to save his sister and other important people in his life. This film gives a personal account of the struggle and hard work that went into the designing, constructing, and traveling through the tunnel. This story is one that will easily stir the emotions of the audience. For people my age who never lived while the wall was still up it is sometimes hard to see the wall as something other than a political symbol. In reality this wall divided families and loved ones, affecting the lives of many. This movie focuses on the struggles that individuals on the East went through to escape. This film showed several different desperate attempts, some successful, some not. While portraying the attempt it also reveals that perseverance and a common goal among friends can accomplish a lot. One thing that stands out when watching this film is its length. While it is an extremely long movie there is a sense of suspense that keeps it intriguing. There is a building of intensity throughout the film which comes to a climax when the tunnel is being put to use. After watching this film it is clear that though situations can seem impossible, the love of a friend or family member can overcome any obstacle.

[MSiemers]

In The Tunnel the audience is dragged down to the depths with a group of Germans so desperate to get their loved ones from East Germany in 1961 that they are prepared to dig a tunnel under the infamous Berlin Wall. The tunnel takes a year to dig, is seven metres deep and 145 metres long.

The story of The Tunnel is really the story of Harry Melchior (Heino Ferch), an East German champion swimmer who escapes to the west disguised as a tourist. Before leaving the state which has imprisoned him for four years he promised his sister, Lotte Lohmann (Alexandra Maria Lara) that he would do his best to rescue her from the oppressive regime. Joining him in his noble mission is Matthis Hiller (Sebastian Koch), an engineer with the knowhow if only the rest of the gang will listen to him. He wants to rescue his wife and unborn child. Also on the team is Friederike 'Fritzi' Scholz (Nicolette Krebitz). Her intended is trapped on the other side of the wall, but does she really love him? There is a whole host of other characters who have their own motivations for helping out, but who can be trusted and who is a spy? All the actos put in superb performances, transporting the viewer back to those troubled times. What makes The Tunnel such compelling viewing is not it's high production values and suspenseful story, although it has both in oodles, but the very fact that it is a true story. Directed by Roland Suso Richter and written by Johannes W Betz, The Tunnel is filmed in the original German with English subtitles. But the subject is so enthralling that you soon forget you are having to read each line. While it is three hours long it doesn't even feel it. The Tunnel began its run during the Te Awamutu International Film Festival at The Regent cinema but is to continue showing.

[tstriley]

“Der Tunnel” directed by Roland Suso Richter, is a very moving film which came from a much longer mini-series from television in 2001. This film depicts the true story of a group of people, many who have no previous acquaintance with each other, coming together to dig a tunnel under the Berlin wall in order to be reunited with their friends and loved ones. Although the film seemed somewhat “Hollywood” in my opinion, I felt incredibly drawn in by the inner stories of a fallen athlete out to find his sister again, and of a woman who waits to see her lover someday. Der Tunnel showed the very real hardships that many people experienced during the separation of Germany as well as the determination to be reunited as a family and as a country. Despite many problems this group faces, whether it be the flooding of their beloved tunnel or the close calls with Nazi soldiers finding them out, they never give up their cause and go on fighting to be unified with the other side. We also see the side of the Nazis and their determination to find them out and destroy their plans of successfully building such a tunnel. I must admit that this film pulled on my heart strings, not just because of the Hollywood feeling storylines, but because this was an actual event in history where people persevered through one of the scariest and most difficult situations I could ever imagine. I found this to be a fantastic and worthwhile film.

[clamothe]

The Tunnel is a film based on the true story of a group of West Germans tunneling through to the East to reunite their friends and families in the West. The significance of the Berlin Wall to these people is exemplified in the film by what they did and what they risked in order to cross the few yards to the other side of the Berlin Wall.

The group of tunnelers shared a common goal but their specific backgrounds and specific all differed. The film was able to exemplify the many effects that the wall had on citizens and the many reasons that drove people to risk their liberty and lives to reunite with their loved ones.

The tunneler’s originating West Berlin location was very near the wall; from the roof they could even see across to the activities of the other side. Yet, East Berlin, and their families, remained inaccessible to them. These Germans had to carefully tunnel underneath the wall to reach the Germans on the other side, the infuriating Wall fueling their efforts.

The film stood out to me by meticulously drawing out the efforts that were necessary to successfully reunite their families. Many German films that take place in the era of the Wall include aspects of escape and border crossing, however many efforts in these films either fail or succeed only due to luck. This film begs appreciation for the realistic efforts and consequences that are presented.

This film is hardly a movie to lighten you up, but you I was very satisfied with the film. I recommend viewing it if you are curious what it took to reunite families that were split by the Wall.

[GER199W10]

This is a test