Europe Endless - Germany: The Lives of Others (Dir Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2h17m, 2006)
Germany. The history of German cinema is impossible to outline in a single column. For those interested, I recommend the excellent, if expensive A New History of German Cinema ( Boydell & Brewer, 2012 ) , but its history is intertwined with cinema, and European cinema, as a whole, birthing the horror movie, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror , (Dir. F. W. Murnau, 1922), and science fiction, via Metropolis (Dir Fritz Lang, 1927). The aftermath of the Second World War would leave Germany, and its cinema, divided between the democratic West embracing New German Cinema, Herzog, Wenders, Fassbinder et al, and the Communist East largely stifled by the censorship and heavy restrictions of GDR leader Erich Honecker, reduced to propaganda films and fairytales. Reunified Germany has subsequently gone from strength to strength cinematically, with three Best Foreign Language Film Oscars since 1990. Yet, there is little cinema concerning this period; much of it, like...
