Director: Georg Wilhelm Pabst
French and German, with English subtitles
Five stars out of five
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022017/
Events in Chile reminded me of a film I saw a while back about a mine cave-in and rescue in France, near the Franco-German border. Kameradschaft is set a few years after the end of WW1, which is referred to a few times and which establishes a context of bitter resentments – in some. The film is based on an actual incident that took place about ten years before WW1 began.
Early on, before the cave-in, we see hostility between Germans and Frenchmen — kids bickering along the border (an unsubtle metaphor!); German workers turned away by French border guards; German men feeling insulted in a bistro inside France. The bistro incident is through miscommunication, not an intended insult. A French woman doesn’t want to dance anymore but the German thinks she doesn’t want to dance with a German. Message: people are basically decent; conflict breaks out through misunderstanding.
When the disaster strikes, word seizes the French town and people stream to the mine to learn of the fate of loved ones — quite moving, actually. When word reaches the German miners, who have just ended their shift, the reaction is mixed. Some care not what happens to the French, but others say they are fellow miners and in need of help. The latter argument wins out and the men board trucks and race to the scene, speeding trough the border stations without stopping.
We get interesting looks at the working conditions and lives of mine workers, German and French, and also the insides of mines and the equipment used.
WW1 references: we see a sign about reparations in the German town; as the Germans debate whether or not to help, one man refers to the French occupation of the Saar; as the German rescuers approach, in gas masks and amid underground fires, a dazed French miner has a flashback to his war experiences in which the German assault troops wear gas masks and use flamethrowers.
There is an interwar socialist message in the film. Government officials, especially French ones, are seen as petty and lacking in the sense of brotherhood that the miners and their families have. However, the German and French mine owners cooperate amicably to help the miners — not quite in keeping with socialism.
Toward the end, miners from both sides celebrate the rescue and proclaim their lasting friendship. One evokes the themes of the WW1 flashback by saying they have nothing to fear but gas and fire. But the ending scene is of French and German officials sealing a tunnel that was used by one group of German rescuers to reach French miners, eliciting the idea that understanding and cooperation are blocked by the state.
Copyright 2010 Brian M Downing