Himmel ohne Sterne

Taivas ilman tähtiä / Himmel utan stjärnor / Sky Without Stars. DE 1955. PC: Neue Deutsche Filmgesellschaft. P: Harald Braun. D+SC+narrator: Helmut Käutner. DP: Kurt Hasse. Starring Eva Kotthaus (Anna Kaminski), Erik Schumann (Carl Altmann), Georg Thomalla (Willi Becker), Horst Buchholz (Mischa Bjelkin), Camilla Spira (Elsbeth Friese), Otto Wernicke (Inspector Hoffmann). 108 min. A Goethe Institut print with English subtitles viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 23 September 2008. - A dupe from a (vintage?) English-titled print, low contrast and high contrast. - Thüringen and Bayern. The young mother, Anna, from the East wants her son back from the West. Her own parents live in the East. Her husband has died in the war, and his parents live in the West. There is a kindly Bavarian border policeman, Carl, who helps her. A deserted railway station becomes their meeting place. - One of the best films about the Iron Curtain grows into a full-blown tragedy. Against cliché, it presents the human sacrifice resulting from the political situation. - Käutner has a sensitive touch as a director of actors, but I miss a certain sturdiness in the narrative.