Modern Times, or, Love Amongst the Ruins

Following our policy of contrasting the classics with more recent films, the programmes for the rest of the term contain a silent film from the golden age of cinema, a compilation film, and recent films from Russia, Czechoslovakia, and Germany.

As there are still no projectors in the new theatre we will be screening these in C.3 as usual. Exact dates and times of screenings and details about the film will be posted on our regular club noticeboard and prominently around the university; please read them—I am getting sick of answering idiotic questions from cruts too lazy to look at the noticeboard.

Born in 1921

(Czech-German, 1957)

The hero of this film is Jan, a young Czech. He is sent with his comrades who have been taken as forced labourers to Germany to clear away debris after air raids on a German town. While rescuing a small child from the rubble, he is injured and taken to hospital where he meets the German nurse, Kathe. They fall in love; in the middle of the horrors of war, the all-pervading hatred and the ever present threat of death, the two people find each other and discover a mutual understanding that transcends the difference in nationality.

Kathe's contact with a foreigner provokes the enmity of the Head sister and the girl is transferred to Dresden. There Jan and Kathe meet again and enjoy a brief glimpse of happiness—Kathe is arrested by the Gestapo for collaborating with a foreigner, the film ending on a note of tragedy.

The House I Live In

(Russia, 1957)

Award For Best Film, Brussels Festival, 1958.

United Nations Award, 1958.

The First Screening in New Zealand.

Several families move into a new apartment house built at the beginning of the thirties in one of the suburbs of Moscow. Among them are the factory worker Davydov, the office worker Volynsky, and the geologist Kashirin. The years pass . . . the lives of the inhabitants in the house differ in many ways but they are all happy in their work and their hopes and plans for the future. Then comes the war, and Galya Volynskaia, a charming young girl, and Kashirin are both killed at the front; Konstantin Davydov is crippled. The house loses many of its inhabitants, but in their place the younger generation is growing up.

That Christmas

(Czechoslovakia, 1958)

The story takes us back to the Second World War, the last wartime Christmas Eve. A Czech Army unit has retaken a Slovak village from the Germans and the front Is now just outside the village. The villagers wish to entertain the soldiers at the Christmas celebration but the Commander of the Battalion is uncertain whether they should leave the front. When German loudspeakers commence playing "Silent Night" and dance music he gives the men permission to go and realises too late that the Germans have tricked them. A bitter battle ensues and in the end the Czech unit forces the enemy to retreat, though not before several lives have been lost.