Tom Tykwer ’ s Winterschläfer and the Heimatfilm JOHN BLAIR U NIVERSITY OF W EST G EORGIA Tom Tykwer ’ s prominence since the 1998 premiere of Lola rennt has been consolidated with international productions such as Heaven (2002), Perfume (2006), and The International (2009). Although Winterschläfer (1997) preceded Lola rennt in Germany and shares some of its stylistic features, its international reception was delayed. The American release of Winterschäfer in March 2000 probably occurred only because of the popularity of Lola rennt. Since that release, Winterschläfer has since garnered some popular acclaim and more recently an academic reception. 1 In the film, four young Germans working in a ski resort village «hang out,» seeking ineffectually for meaning in their lives, which are touched obliquely by the decline of a local farmer ’ s fortunes after the death of his young daughter in an automobile accident. Despite the kinetic energy Lutz Koepnik notes in Winterschläfer ’ s techno soundtrack and its frequent abrupt cuts and mobile camera work (8), it seems initially quite static in its emphasis on the personal and its exclusion of the political. On the one hand, one could argue that the quaint isolated village constitutes a crucible in which the film ’ s personal conflicts are compressed and intensified. On the other, if the words winter sleepers describe the main characters, then one must assume that the most important issues are outside the film, that the natural pendant to the film is the sum total of its apposite characteristics: awake, conscious, active, involved, political, discursive, and public. Tykwer suggests, if a bit defensively, that the film is political by depicting the apolitical: [. . .] akut politische Filme zu machen ist wirklich nicht leicht zur Zeit . . . [W]ir haben keine Streitkultur, überhaupt keine Diskurskultur mehr, nur intellektuelle Wüste - das ist ja alles ein Resultat aus der politischen Gegenwart, die da seit inzwischen bald 20 Jahren vor sich hindümpelt. Und um sich in dieser Realität zu befreien, ist erst mal wichtig, daß man sie wahrnimmt, daß man sie beschreibt, was wir auch mit der «Baustelle» 2 versucht haben, und auch in Winterschläfer. Das sind ja beides Filme, die in einem Jahr entstanden sind, die auf unterschiedliche Weise unterschiedliche Schichten zeigen, die aber beide sehr repräsentativ sind speziell für Deutschland, und das deutsche Lebensgefühl dieser Zeit. (1998) So Winterschäfer could mean to promote an awareness of a particularly negative and apolitical condition, to encourage an audience to reflect on its own stagnation, to offer a kind of Fürstenspiegel 3 reflecting Generation Golf to itself. 4 Florian Illies ’ s use of the film ’ s four young Germans - Rene, Laura, Marco, and Rebecca - as examples of the young adults of Generation Golf in his 2003 book of the same name is partially justified. All four characters come across as narcissistic and struggle mostly with very personal problems and malaise. The characters are color coded by their clothing and the film ’ s mise-en-scéne. Marco, who dresses almost exclusively in blue, is unhappy, but seems content enough to maintain multiple sexual relationships, eat, and watch bad movies and game shows on television. Rebecca, wearing red, is very sensually oriented and worries about maintaining a long-term relationship with Marco. Rene (black) and Laura (green) are alienated and unsatisfied, but have settled more permanently in the town and meet and develop what may be a lasting relationship. All of the figures suffer from weariness and some degree of indecision. In fact, all of them are shown repeatedly, either in bed, or stretched out on the couch or in the bathtub. Like Koepnick, Margaret McCarthy sees redemption from this narcissism and passivity in the «film ’ s kinetic visual register,» particularly the «energetic, circular tracking shots or lateral pans that pit mobility against inertia» (58). More importantly, in my opinion, she refers to the political implications of the film ’ s gestures to the Heimatfilm tradition, and notes that Winterschläfer was filmed in Berchtesgaden, Hitler ’ s «resort residence» (55 and 55, n. 6). Reading Winterschläfer as a Heimatfilm opens up productive contexts, and reintroduces strong political aspects to the film, despite Tykwer ’ s half apologetic disavowal of them. The Heimatfilm, as McCarthy notes, citing Alasdair King, is «always about the ideological meaning of space,» about «larger historical conflicts around German borders, and by extension, national identity» (56). Indeed, the Heimatfilm traditionally allows for the kind of illusory resolution of insoluble conflicts theorized by Fredric Jameson in The Political Unconscious, partially by moving the action into a natural realm far removed from political conflicts and partially by displacing political and cultural conflicts onto the personal. Clearly, the Heimatfilm has played something other than an entirely progressive role in German culture, and it is no wonder that it was a dominant genre during the Third Reich and in the 1950s. These 50s Heimat films are, according to Anton Kaes, «deceitful movie kitsch,» and to Robert Morely, a «way to disavow the cultural rupture of 1933 - 45» (cited in Ludewig 27). Naturally there have been critical and progressive films in this tradition, since genres gradually constitute and transform themselves historically, 5 but when a genre is so clearly evoked, as it is in Winterschläfer, it is these traditional 2 John Blair celebratory films that are referenced and used to comment on changing German identity. In this paper, I argue that Winterschläfer references the Heimatfilm for more progressive political agendas. The largest hurdle such an interpretation faces is the verisimilitude with which Tykwer ’ s film corresponds to the Heimatfilm. It does belong to the genre, not only by virtue of the sweeping mountain cinematography and its depiction of a Bavarian family ’ s trials after an accident that takes the life of the daughter, but also because it clearly suggests providence or fate as a major player in its narratives. All of the characters are contemplating new beginnings at the end, and are contemplating these new beginnings despite or because of mistakes, misconceptions, and errors; if viewers see the end as somehow positive, as the fulfillment, for example, of a hidden justice, then there is a sense that everything works out in the end, despite our errors and misconceptions, a kind of vote of confidence in fate, a confirmation of the old adage that God works in mysterious ways. Such an interpretation would return us to the problematic ideological terrain often associated with the Heimatfilm - to a premodern, nostalgic «all ’ s right with the world,» in a small, claustrophobic, ethnically and racially monotone «heile Welt.» Winterschläfer is quite successful in providing a resolution that harmoniously ties up loose ends and smoothes all conflicts, providing symbolic solutions to the problems and discomfort associated with the individuals ’ experience of modernity. It is difficult to completely do away with this reading, since the film points to it at every turn and buttresses it with mystical music and montages. However, the exaggerated nature of the film ’ s nods to providence and Heimatfilm suggests parodic implications, and a number of politically critical themes are pointedly broached, suggesting that a careful and nuanced reading can provide sound and productive interpretations that sidestep some of the more atavistic implications of popular examples of the genre and its fateful tendencies. After extensive discussion of some of the film ’ s parallels to the traditional Heimatfilm, i. e., the way it satisfies genre requirements in ideologically conservative ways, I will argue that it subverts these same themes by foregrounding tropes of memory and stereotyping tied to historical notions of Germanness, and thus emphasizes an interpretive context that includes an awareness of the problems associated with the Heimatfilm. The Heimatfilm often focuses on individuals and communities dealing with the results of large-scale political events. Exiles flee from the east due to political turmoil; national boundaries must be redrawn; or totalitarian regimes must be consolidated after WWII. 6 Many films in the genre focus on how couples and communities negotiate these issues, dealing with the changing times and mores, shifting populations, and, particularly, a lost sense of 3 Tom Tykwer ’ s Winterschläfer and the Heimatfilm belonging, and find their way to a happy end, ratifying the value of love, friendship, family, community, and nation along the way, always within iconic German landscapes in the Alps or forests. In Winterschläfer, these narratives of displacement are reflected ironically. The four main characters are outsiders who have wandered into the village, but they are only fleeing less than harmonious family lives. Their malaise and alienation seems much more personal, if not narcissistic, hence the references to Generation Golf. They are reasonably secure in material terms. Marco suffers from being something of a kept man, living with his lawyer girlfriend in Berlin and driving her car to his resort job as a ski instructor. Laura has inherited a house from her aunt. Rene has a cushy job as a projectionist and probably a disability pension because of his accident in the military. And Rebecca is living with a friend and can count on some sort of inheritance, since her grandmother had extensive property. They may be suffering from alienation or spiritual Angst, but materially they are in great shape. Although it is difficult to see these characters as victims, they are outsiders and exiles of a kind, fleeing familial, if not political turmoil. The four color-coded exiles are clearly not local color, but transients in search of the same absences that motivate the Heimatfilm ’ s criticism of modernity: the loss of connection, community, meaning, happiness, family, and roots. They are in process, in hibernation, to echo the film ’ s title, and they are all fleeing the same negative potential of the very things that they are seeking, i. e., family conflicts and shallow or confining relationships. The film ’ s prologue shows Rene and Laura, in completely separate locations, listening to bickering during the Christmas festivities, and deciding to return early to the Ski-resort area where they work. Marco is running away from a relationship in Berlin in which he feels smothered and unfulfilled. And Rebecca doesn ’ t go home at all, but stays in the resort eating, drinking, and watching television. We know, however, from a later incident that her family fights over money and the grandmother ’ s inheritance, and that her presence in the mountain village represents an earlier flight. That these characters run away to the mountains and that this locus plays a role in their development further references the Heimatfilm tradition. The touristic nature of these areas is a feature of many Heimatfilme which often celebrate particularly picturesque remote areas and popularize them as vacation sites, hence domesticating them. Von Moltke discusses the «domesticated sublime» in the popular mountain films Franz Ostermayr made from Ludwig Ganghofer ’ s novels, but there remains a vestige of the darker, more natural and more dangerous «Alpine Sublime» in the Winterschläfer (44). 7 Mountains are, after all, both beautiful and dangerous, a characteristic Marco confirms in his slow motion plunge to his death at the end of the film. 4 John Blair In the center of this Heimatfilm lies a near collision between Theo, a true «premodernist father» (Schlipphacke 120), and Rene, one of the color-coded outsiders. The accident is, at least for the characters, shrouded in mystery. Neither Theo nor Rene can remember the details of the accident. Theo has been injured in the crash and Rene has no short-term memory at all because of an accident with a grenade during his military service. Rene ’ s vehicle vanishes into a snowdrift and is found only at the end of the film when the snow starts to thaw. When Theo reports his version of the accident, one policeman says to the other, «Was kannst machen? Der Mann ist am Ende. Der Hof ist pleite. Die Tochter ist in einem Koma.» When one of his sons asks about getting a horse to replace the one that died, he replies ambiguously, «Mir schaffen des net. Diesmal net.» And shortly thereafter, the family is forced to move from the farm, further up into the mountains, away from the village into a remote area. 8 The family ’ s fortunes and happiness have been destroyed and Theo is obsessed with a desire for retribution. This is eventually granted to him after he find ’ s Marco ’ s identification papers in the car and then encounters him in the mountains. Marco flees and plunges to his death, while Theo is satisfied that his daughter ’ s death has been avenged and seems content. At the level of the plot, Winterschläfer has provided a solution, but it is based on suppressing or forgetting the fact that Theo is responsible for the accident and that Marco wasn ’ t present at all, and is guilty only of serial infidelity. But Theo, as a local, can now feel once again at home in the mountains, after having avenged his daughter ’ s death and defended the community against an outsider. Although Marco is not guilty of the crime, he does pose problems for the community in this film and exhibits an existential homelessness. Certainly he attempts to take part in numerous transactions, all of which involve the body, and none of which are satisfactory. He doesn ’ t want what he needs, or he cannot stand what he wants. He seems to want space, so he leaves his girlfriend ’ s apartment in Berlin and drives her car to his new job in the mountains. Despite his desire to be on his own, he moves out of his own apartment into Rebecca ’ s room. He rehearses lines in front of a mirror about the increased intimacy living together will allow, but when he shows up with his suitcase, he is petulant and annoyed, and forgets his rehearsed argument. He house sits for his boss and claims to own the house while seducing another woman, but he can ’ t find the light switches and burns himself badly on an espresso machine that he is unable to use. Home seems to be a dangerous place for him. He seems to be at home on the ski slopes, but after an encounter with Theo and his dog, he skis off a cliff. He owns nothing and has no place of his own. He also fails to maintain stable relationships of any sort. All of the transactions that purport to emotional 5 Tom Tykwer ’ s Winterschläfer and the Heimatfilm involvement or relationships are reduced to physical pleasure or material and financial advantage. In addition to sex, he gets the car from one relationship and a rent-free apartment from another. He eats everything in the fridge and doesn ’ t clean up after himself. He uses another ’ s house, alcohol, and coffee, and claims them as part of his own identity. He is restless and discontent, and maintains that three happy years in a life are all that one can expect. He has a disturbed relationship to Heimat, and can get no satisfaction. His life - a peripatetic search without a recognized goal, a series of short and meaningless relationships - serves as a foil to the main narrative of the film, the story of Rene and Laura, who, despite their own issues with feeling at home, find one another and produce a child at the end of the movie. Marco ’ s metaphoric flight from relationships during most of the film and his literal flight to his death (or rebirth) at the end of it constitutes, for Schipphacke, an escape tableaux that «explicitly reject[s] the past, thereby discarding a potential nostalgia for Heimat.» My project is also a kind of recuperative interpretation, but I disagree. Although this scene does seem to fulfill the implication of the opening montages, it also suggests a more problematic aspect of the Heimat motif, namely the protection of the community space. Marco ’ s leap into freedom/ death removes a disturbed and disturbing character from the community. He is not only narcissistically hedonistic; he is unhappy, dissatisfied, dishonest, manipulative, and incapable of maintaining relationships. His presence causes difficulty for every other character in the film and obstructs the formation and maintenance of community and family. After his death, Laura and René live together and have a child, and Rebecca and Nina, the new girl in yellow, go out into the world to try again to find more stable and satisfying relationships. Theo seems to have come to terms with the death of his daughter and looks out optimistically at the mountain spring thaw while splitting wood. And the implication that Marco ’ s energy or spirit is somehow continuing on in the child strengthens the sense that all things work together to promote the continuance of mythic community, certainly a nostalgic idea. 9 Marco has been the problem in the community, particularly for women, and his death and rebirth suggest once again a mythic economy of energy, the efficient recycling of otherwise destructive male energies, or if you will, a kind of sublimation. And perhaps «leap into freedom» is a bit euphemistically phrased. He is, after all, fleeing from Theo, certainly representative of the autochthonous in this community. He is chased off the cliff by the community, which is then, to argue within the ideological framework of the normative melodramatic Heimatfilm, much better off. Within this tradition, Winterschläfer depicts solutions to problems. The largest source of conflict has been culled; the 6 John Blair dissatisfied and/ or disappointed go searching for happiness; and the central couple has found it, and reproduces. In the opening sequence, we see Rebecca cut her thumb. As McCarthy notes, this is a reference to «Sleeping Beauty,» which resonates especially well in a context where Germanness is being emphasized, and fits the title and topic of hibernation and character development. However, the mise-en-scène also sets up the concept of home central to a conservative notion of Heimat. Rebecca is filmed from below, gazing at her cut thumb with the wall and ceiling joists of a traditional German timber frame house behind her and a cupboard with herbs and plates on display. It is not accidental that she is in pajamas and decidedly blond, since she functions here as a quintessential German image of woman, barefoot in her domain, mistress of the hearth even if the house doesn ’ t belong to her. Her blood is not just the index of a spindle poke, but also in this context of hearth, home, and Heimat, surely a marker of race and ethnicity. When she answers Laura ’ s query as to what she had been doing, she laconically replies that she had «slept, read, and waited.» Despite the absence of «Kinder, Kirche, Küche,» she still functions as an ideal of German femininity and she has clearly been waiting for her man. McCarthy notes that the Sleeping Beauty motif prompts «viewers to associate geographic isolation with amorous possibilities» (55), which ties Rebecca to both a heightened and generally subordinate gender construct - she is waiting, and «only sex counters her symbolic malaise» (McCarthy 64) - and to the natural sublime of the Heimat tradition. Indeed, the film crosscuts between her masturbatory climax and post-coital cigarette and Marco ’ s plunge to his death, suggesting a mythical context again, this time of female power, and/ or a melodramatic wish fulfillment. If one does grant her representative status as a German woman, her pairing with Marco is significant. As a well-built and confident blond male who is associated with the sun, he is mythically rendered. His depiction both at the outset and the end as a kind of Sonnenjunge plays into National Socialist mythology. And although he suggests that the local police are xenophobic, 10 he does so by making them into an Other - stupid, unsophisticated hicks - onto whom he can project some of his own failings. After all, he not only does not lock the car, he leaves the door wide open and the key in the ignition; he can ’ t find a light switch in a house he claims to own, nor manage an espresso machine without serious burns. He would seem to be the unsophisticated hick rather than the police. He also prefers blonds, and his death and the departure of Rebecca and Nina (the woman in yellow with whom Marco has an affair) banishes blonds from paradise, a symbolic exorcism of a number of characteristics that could be associated with traditional historical German role 7 Tom Tykwer ’ s Winterschläfer and the Heimatfilm models. These particular blonds seem to be a generally un-self-reflexive, overly gendered group, and their departure leaves behind dark-haired characters who seem more self-reflexive and have less strongly gendered characters. The final scenes, for example, suggest an alternative family organization. Rene is at home taking care of the baby and waving at Laura returning home, probably from work as the primary wage earner. Within the context of the Heimatfilm, a genre which often defines Heimat by expelling its various others» (von Moltke 5), it is striking that those characters who have been identified as especially German through Märchen and mythological references and by virtue of their stereotypical physical features are the ones who have been cast out of the community. This constitutes a kind of inversion of traditional roles in the genre. From this vantage point, additional themes in German historical discourses, such as memory, stereotyping, and collective guilt, become more prominent in the film. Rene ’ s ongoing struggle to piece together his past, Laura ’ s inability to remember her lines in the Tennessee Williams ’ play A Streetcar named Desire, and Theo ’ s inaccurate memory of the accident are all related, and all of these figures are causally connected to the daughter ’ s death. They, as well as Marco and Rebecca, participate in a network of events that cause the death of the child. It is a series of nebulous causal connections, all of which are tied to the final tragic event: If Marco had locked the car door, and if Rebecca had been less emphatically demanding, if Rene hadn ’ t seen the open car door as a fateful invitation, if the child hadn ’ t stowed aboard, if Theo hadn ’ t tried to get to the walky-talky on a snowy road, and if Laura hadn ’ t decided to open the drapes against the will of the father, the child would still be alive. These connections point to collective guilt, a collective community entanglement in actions that have repercussions. In every case, the film ’ s context makes the actions understandable, and we are not pushed to judge the characters harshly for their decisions. McCarthy describes some of these decisions as «infantile dispositions» and «childlike whims,» i. e., Marco ’ s desire for immediate sex, Rene ’ s spontaneous joyride, and the young girl ’ s disobedient act (58), but this seems to limit the context too much and to exaggerate Marco ’ s role in the precipitousness of the sexual encounter in question. He was, after all, pulled into the house while voicing some protest. I would argue that the depiction of so much causal context suggests quite strongly the concept of collective guilt supported by German postwar intellectuals, but without as much venom. Throughout the second half of the 20th century, viewers and readers have generally resisted this concept of collective guilt to a large degree, and Chancellor Helmut Kohl ’ s symbolic pardon to those who enjoy «die Gnade der späten Geburt» only emphasizes the need to understand and reflect on 8 John Blair collective guilt and responsibility. By avoiding direct historical references and by allowing a measure of sympathy and understanding, Tykwer ’ s depiction escapes psychological censure. In other words, his use of the Hollywood narrative tendencies allows him to explore the «insistent particulars of German history and identity» (McCarthy 60) without causing immediate defensiveness on the part of the viewer. Winterschläfer works with a concept of collective causality in which characters ’ acts are connected. It is similar to the oft-cited butterfly effect of chaos theory, but it is not neutral or accidental. All of the characters do share some responsibility and some guilt in the outcome, that is, all of them choose to act in ways that are problematic. The daughter chooses to disobey her father ’ s well-meaning instructions, and Theo chooses to irresponsibly look for the walky-talky in the back seat on an icy road. The only person who might arguably be innocent in the chain is Laura who opens the drapes and plays music for the child with only the best of intentions. She does, however, experiment a bit, trying out «treatments» on her own while the child is lying in a coma, and she ignores the father ’ s request that she not open the drapes and let in the sunlight. She overreaches and decides that she knows what is best. In these events, Tykwer has created a depiction of collective guilt that has been made palatable without too much loss of substance. In fact, the Heimatfilm, with its emphasis on community, would seem an ideal vehicle for this particular content. Although the film ’ s narrative clearly points to a shared guilt, it suggests that this guilt is part of the human condition, and allows us as viewers to pardon the characters by seeing them as seekers on life ’ s journey, attempting to find happiness, connection, or enlightenment. The mystical context suggested at the end of the movie by Marco ’ s rebirth in the child, i. e., reincarnation, also implies endless searching over multiple lives. The frenetic, breathless musical score at the outset of the film, accompanying the camera ’ s ceaseless and rapid movement over the snow and through the forest supports this sense of searching by pantomiming a hunt. Marco ’ s search seems limited to a series of meaningless sexual encounters, but even he recognizes that there is something more that he is not finding, hence his remark about being lucky if you experience three good happy years in a life. Thus he is reborn to search further. Rebecca is searching for more, as well, but is so strongly tied to sensual experience that it drowns out other interests. Her translations would suggest the possibility of self-reflection, but they bottom out in typical romance/ soft porn fashion by attempting to camouflage traditional gender characteristics with grandiose quasi-mythical natural parallels. The empty gesture toward monumental nature mimics depth while predicating commonplaces. Rebecca must journey on and search further. Nina, the yellow girl, is young, shy but 9 Tom Tykwer ’ s Winterschläfer and the Heimatfilm open to experience, and clearly not ready to reflect too much. She sees through Marco ’ s lies but accepts his invitation in the spirit of carpe diem. She, too, within the film ’ s universalizing narrative, must continue to search/ sleep. Rene and Laura are granted a «time out,» a locus amoenus, a little Heimat, if you will, and the film suggests that they earned it. Rene and Laura, the new, alternative, dark-haired family that remains after the «expulsion» of the blonds, are more self-reflexive than the other characters, but they too not only also participate in the collective guilt of the community, but rather exhibit additional problematic attitudes and behaviors. Like Marco, they project their own difficulties onto outsiders, a classical projection, very human, but exaggerated and legitimized in fascist cultures. McCarthy reads Marco ’ s remarks about the local police in the context of Tykwer ’ s reference to Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Spielberg ’ s suburbia, as the seat of bland, claustrophobic materialism, shifts slightly to the collective mentality of the Dorf (village), which eschews alien elements. (At one point Marco imitates the local Bavarian-accented gendarme, claiming that a stolen car to them is as odd as a UFO landing.) Tykwer ’ s nod to Spielberg signals more than precociousness because trumped-up fear of aliens resounds forcefully in a German context. Here I mean not only the anti-Semitism that laid the foundation for the Holocaust but also the victim mentality that emerged in the postwar era and was directed at Allied forces. (70) Without detracting from McCarthy ’ s insights about the «collective mentality of the Dorf,» I would like to shift more of the onus of the criticism to Marco. After all, he is denigrating Bavarians, rural policeman, etc., the very group that is trying to clean up his mess. Such projection is a dominant characteristic of Marco ’ s in the film. He sees both Rene and Rebecca as dishonest, cheating behind his back, while they are innocent, and he programmatically cheats on Rebecca. He also projects his own bad moods onto other characters on a number of occasions. And his relationship to women in general makes them into exotic others to be preyed on and used for personal profit. He drives their cars, eats their groceries, and moves in with them to save on rent. Finally, he explicitly and repeatedly sees himself as a victim. In the context of xenophobia and Otherness, the Dorf has its issues, but Marco is guilty of every sin and psychological tendency that might be associated with Germany ’ s historical skeletons in the collective closet. Despite Rene and Laura ’ s more favorable depiction, they too are tied to group norms that create intimacy through exclusion, that is, they have the same issues with guilt and personal responsibility as both Marco and the locals. They meet after a film and play a game, each describing the other with a list of negative characteristics. Laura labels Rene «nervös, arrogant, eitel, 10 John Blair ungepflegt, ungesund, selbstgefällig, sehnsüchtig, verbraten, fremd,» and he, for his part, defines her as «verschlossen, frustriert, verklemmt, verzögert, zugeknöpft, zusammengerissen, egozentrisch, appetitlos.» On the one hand, such jousting with personal characteristics enables self-reflection and redefinition, and cutely defines the relationship through word games that create a dialogue of recognition, qualification, real and mock hurt, and acceptance. On the other hand, the opinions expressed are harsh and personal enough that one might think they would exclude the possibility of a relationship. However, it becomes clear that they are going to be a couple when they are able to agree on criticizing a third party. When the waitress brings coffee instead of tea, Laura describes her as «blöd, hässlich, dämlich, blind, taub, stumm, bescheuert.» The film depicts the all too human tradition of forging a bond based on creating and criticizing an outsider, a mechanism active in more general marginalization, exclusions, biases, prejudices, etc., and in doing so, allows for further criticism of the characters. The most positive and self-reflexive characters in the film become a case study in a trait that is central to the cultural discourse on the Third Reich. Becoming aware of such tendencies is part of Vergangenheitsbewältigung, but here the gesture becomes part of a courtship ritual that we can identify with, making us part of the problem. The behaviors of projection and exclusion become a commonality that ties all of the young exiles together and relates them to Theo, to the community, and to the Heimatfilm. Winterschläfer reminds us of such cultural fictions and generalizes them, makes them our problem as well. The young blow-ins have the same problems with memory and with fictions and falsehoods as Theo. They also belong thematically in the Heimatfilm. Johannes von Moltke argues that the Heimatfilm generally defines Heimat against its binary oppositions, i. e., «exile, [. . .] rootlessness, displacement,» and uses «such oppositions in order to stabilize a hierarchy of values and a moral universe that defines Heimat by expelling its various others» (5). This supports Theo ’ s satisfaction after his encounter with Marco who flees only to plummet from a cliff. In Theo ’ s narrative, he has expelled the stranger who caused his daughter ’ s death, and we know that this is a convenient fiction. Not only was Rene rather than Marco the driver of the car Theo remembers, but Theo himself was directly responsible for the accident. Despite these errors and fictions, the film invites us to participate in the same ritual expelling. All of the characters who are «not ready for community» are shown leaving at the end of the film, and the viewer witnesses and affirms. The tradition of the Heimatfilm genre helps make such critical themes more visible, since such contexts are the ideological bread and butter of the genre. 11 Tom Tykwer ’ s Winterschläfer and the Heimatfilm Instead of a genre that helps the viewer forget the gaping chasm represented by the Third Reich, the film thematizes forgetfulness as a human problem. Although we may sympathize with Theo, we know that he has forgotten his own complicity in the problem and is looking for a scapegoat. When he wrinkles his forehead and tries to trace the half-remembered scar in his potatoes, we understand, but he won ’ t find any truth that might set him free. Ironically, as he moves further up the mountains into clearer and clearer air, a trope von Moltke sees in the Heimatfilm, we learn that it is a new narrative, a standard human lie that will allow him to begin moving on again after his daughter ’ s death. This is his personal narrative, but it parallels the more global cultural narrative portrayed in films such as Michael Verhoeven ’ s Das schreckliche Mädchen (1990), where an entire village creates alternative pasts and buries both historical and personal truths. All of the young transients or exiles share Theo ’ s problem with memory and self-supporting narratives. Particularly in Rene ’ s case, these issues are tied to the film ’ s self-reflexive and self-critical meditation on art. Rene ’ s accident with a grenade during his compulsory military service has left him with little or no short-term memory, and he attempts to keep track of his life with snapshots and recordings. With these elements he creates a kind of protofilmic narrative, a suggestion that is strengthened by the fact that he works as a projectionist and criticizes the films he shows. His very real handicap doesn ’ t completely exonerate him. It is clear that the images he shoots and the recordings he makes are chosen for narcissistic and self-serving reasons. They are strongly oriented towards brief sensory impressions; not a car, but a fragment of a car, not a house or a landscape, but a voyeuristic shot of a couple having sex with a sound track. And although he may have been confused, it is still striking that he walks away from the accident, does not try to help Theo, and does not take a picture. This is something that he, at some level, knows that he wants to forget. His accident and his problematic memory become a welcome crutch, despite the fact that this particular gap troubles him. People construct lives just as films construct narratives, based on personal memory and social responsibility, but also with exclusions, suppressions, and, to borrow from A Streetcar named Desire, the play Laura performs in, with mendacities. And these characters and much of contemporary cinema must be faulted for playing too much with the present and losing a sense of the past, for emphasizing momentary experience and response and relegating the concomitant depiction of context to the background. In fact, both the characters and the films of the 90s, the contemporaries to Winterschläfer, do show «a marked disinclination towards any serious political reflections or sustained historical 12 John Blair retrospection» (Rentschler 263). Most of the films of the Heimatfilm genre would also fit Rentschler ’ s «cinema of consensus.» Tykwer has constructed a film that conforms, at least at the level of the plot, to the conventions of a melodramatic Heimatfilm, but he also criticizes films, and perhaps art in general, as media that may encourage reflection and remembering, but may also be complicit in the suppression of memory. The Heimatfilm, so my earlier quotation, is «deceitful movie kitsch.» It takes its place in this film alongside other forms of art. Marco practices lines in front of a mirror and attempts to live life to the fullest, a kind of Lebenskünstler, but doesn ’ t really manage very well. Laura is acting in a good play, A Streetcar named Desire, but she butchers it. Even Theo ’ s repeated modeling of Rene ’ s scar - in potatoes, mud, snow, and on paper - can be seen as an artistic impulse. Perhaps the best parallel in Winterschläfer to the Heimatfilm is Rebecca ’ s translations of romance/ soft porn. Nature, in her translation - tears, sun, salt, condensation, the implicit beach in the idyll - is explicitly tied to the mountainous snowscape Tykwer pans through during this narration. Both the romance genre and the Heimatfilm foreground the search for happiness and depict it in terms of clearly defined gender roles and family relationships that culminate in legitimatized heteronormative families. Both are popular genres that function as substitutes for real fulfillment and help obfuscate actual inadequacies and deficiencies. Rebecca ’ s romance narrative is echoed, if nonerotically, in her response to her grandmother ’ s death, peeing and crying with snow-capped mountains in the background, again bringing multiple fluids and the two genres together. The pantheistic move - paralleling the little in the big, the body and the world, inside and outside - opens up multiple ideological possibilities. If tears are like the ocean, and human desire and coupling are like the beach, then all of these fluids (tears, urine, sperm, snow, seawater, etc.) form one big mythic whole. The romance novel is realized ideologically in Rebecca ’ s character and in the film ’ s mise-en-scène, and in the end with the masturbation, conception, death, and reincarnation sequence. In this sequence, the two genres are again brought together. Mountainscapes, Marco ’ s fall, and Rebecca ’ s masturbation are connected through parallel editing. By making the viewer see the film as a melodrama and as a Heimatfilm, genre characteristics like these mythic plot resolutions which might otherwise support nostalgia or complacency (since our actions do not seem to matter) instead make both more visible to an active spectator, i. e., themes and ideas to be considered in context. And although the filmic devices that compose Tykwer ’ s style are interesting, entertaining, and effective, they are also devices that call attention to themselves, that remind the viewer that he or she is 13 Tom Tykwer ’ s Winterschläfer and the Heimatfilm watching a film. Tykwer has struck that balance that Fassbinder sought and Brecht would have affirmed. He foregrounds filmic detail - technical devices, framing, references to other films - and causes the viewer to reflect, for example, on genre characteristics and history, but his films remain thoroughly enjoyable. Tykwer seems to have come out ahead in his Faustian contract with Hollywood. As he put it in «Analytisch Träumen,» a favorite film «muss meine diffusen Gefühle ebenso spiegeln wie meine konkreten Interessen, er muss den bizarren Spagat aushalten, dass ich mich einerseits in ihm verlieren, abschweifen, träumen möchte, zugleich aber durch ihn nachdenklich, wachgerüttelt, und zum Widerspruch herausgefordert werden will.» Germany ’ s historical experience as perpetrator has, at least in Tykwer ’ s films, allowed its variant of postmodernism to maintain some of the subversive power of modernism, or «in the almost sixty years since the fall of Nazism, the country has experienced an abrupt reentry into modernity that occurred synchronically with German postmodern ruptures» (Schlipphacke 113). Consequently, Tykwer brings his own distinctly German sensibility to the Heimatfilm. He is inundated in international film and aware of the power of Hollywood, but also immersed in the tradition of New German Cinema, referencing Wenders, Fassbinder, and Ballhaus. 11 And he is concerned with history, memory, and critical self-reflection, even if he has a lighter and more forgiving touch than the auteurs of New German Cinema. As McCarthy puts it, he «seems to have intuited that Hollywood codes are effective for communication with politically and historically impervious audiences» (60). Through the evocation of the Heimatfilm and the melodrama, then, Tykwer emphasizes the ideological and political themes of exclusion and expulsion, projection, collective guilt and responsibility, forgetfulness, and the creation of self-serving narratives. He does so in an entertaining, lighthanded fashion, effortlessly harnessing Hollywood codes for his own purposes. It could be easy enough, however, for a viewer to watch the film and miss the call for critical reflection. Creating an entertaining Heimatfilm with traditional resolutions that calls for active viewing and criticism could be seen as playing a dangerous double game. To my mind, however, the exaggerated nature of the mystical layer and its role in the film ’ s resolution function as the ultimate demystifying move. If neither the location, nor the original, autochthonous community, nor the simple life of the Hochland, nor the lifestyle of a farmer, nor clarity, nor the truth itself are what bring about healing and peace, but the passage of time, blind human striving, fate, error, and suppression, then the Heimatfilm is demystified in the process of being referenced. The mystical element that still ghosts through the film remains ideologically problematic, but by effectively illuminating the Heimatfilm, 14 John Blair Winterschläfer repudiates archaic nationalisms and localisms tied to the Alpine landscape as solutions for the discomforts of Modernism. The «solutions» offered by the Heimatfilm are revealed to be the equivalent of the soft porn that Rebecca translates. The love relationship she idealizes - a oneness of salty fluids in nature - parallels the Heimatfilm ’ s image of the individual ’ s embeddedness in a variety of ideological geographies, i. e., blood, home, community, Vaterland, Hochland. The themes of the Heimatfilm are present, but because they are foregrounded as thematic elements, they lose credibility, despite the fact that they can be very real and dangerous fantasies. Finally, because Winterschläfer encourages us to understand and sympathize with the characters in the film, the viewer can potentially see and reflect on his or her own complicity in such ideas and allegiances rather than project them onto other groups. Notes 1 See Koepnik, McCarthy, Osborne, and Schlipphacke, for example. 2 Das Leben ist eine Baustelle is a 1997 X-Filme Creative Pool production directed by Wolfgang Becker and cowritten by Becker and Tykwer. 3 Fürstenspiegel (principum specula, or mirrors for princes) refers to a genre that aimed at influencing rulers, often indirectly through literary texts, by showing them examples of good or bad absolutist princes. 4 Generation Golf is a term coined by Florian Ilies in his eponymous 2003 work. In it he criticizes Germans born between 1965 and 1975 and actually uses the four main characters in Winterschläfer as examples. Among other things, Margaret McCarthy defends the film from his criticism. 5 See Rick Altmann ’ s seminal work, summarized in von Moltke, 26 - 27. 6 See von Moltke ’ s chapter «Expellees, Emigrants, Exiles: Spectacles of Displacement,» 135 - 69. 7 Ludwig Ganghofer (1855 - 1920) became famous for literally dozens of Heimatromane. Franz Ostermayr (a. k. a. Franz Osten; 1876 - 1956) secured the film rights to Ganghofer ’ s works after World War I and made many of Ganghofer ’ s novels into films. See von Moltke 36 - 72. 8 In Johannes von Moltke ’ s readings of the Hochland/ Heimat films in his influental monograph, No Place like Home, moving up the mountain promotes clarity and healing, but is also a flight to «an ahistorical place that provides refuge from the spaces of history below» (39). 9 The film suggests that Marco ’ s death and the birth of Rene and Laura ’ s child are supernaturally related. Marco plunges into a snowy crevice shaped like a navel (Osborne 37) or a vaginal opening. The film cuts back and forth between Rene with the pregnant Laura during Marco ’ s fall and after he disappears into the glacier, cuts to Rene with the baby, dressed in light blue, related to Marco ’ s theme color and his connection to the sky. Rene speaks to the baby about its confusion and inability to be 15 Tom Tykwer ’ s Winterschläfer and the Heimatfilm satisfied, reemphasizing its connection to Marco by reference to his dominant characteristics. 10 See McCarthy 70. 11 Both McCarthy and Schlipphacke argue convincingly that Tykwer references Fassbinder, both in the tight framing of characters in the mise en scéne (see footnote 6) and in the use of Michael Ballhouse ’ s signature 360-degree tracking shot, first used in Fassbinder ’ s 1974 film Martha (McCarthy 72, fn. 41). McCarthy also argues that the film references Wim Wenders road movies of the 70s: «Tykwer amplifies the Golfers ’ apathy and apoliticism by invoking the extreme self-absorption of Wenders ’ s damaged and paranoid wanderers circa 1975» (54). Works Cited Asmussen, Torben. Die Rolle des Filmkameramanns bei der Produktion von Spielfilmen - Exemplarisch dargestellt anhand der Arbeit des Kameramanns Frank Griebe. Magisterarbeit. Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, 2010. Jameson, Fredric. The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1981. Kaes, Anton. From Hitler to Heimat: The Return of History as Film. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1989. Kapcynski, Jennifer M. «Newer German Cinema: From Nostalgia to Nowhere.» The Germanic Review 82 (2007): 3 - 6. Koepnick, Lutz. «Free Fallin ’ : Tom Tykwer and the Aesthetics of Deceleration and Dislocation.» The Germanic Review 82 (2007): 7 - 30. Ludewig, Alexandra. «Screening the East, Probing the Past: The Baltic Sea in Contemporary German Cinema.» German Politics and Society 22 (2004): 27 - 48. McCarthy, Margaret. «Somnolent Selfhood: Winterschläfer and Generation Golf.» New German Critique 37 (2010): 53 - 74. von Moltke, Johannes. No Place like Home: Locations of Heimat in German Cinema. Berkeley: U California P, 2005. Osborne, Dora. «The Sleeping Wound: Abjection and Dormancy in Tykwer ’ s Winterschläfer.» GFL. German as a Foreign Language 3 (2006). 22 - 39. Schlipphacke, Heidi. «Melodrama ’ s Other: Entrapment and Escape in the Films of Tom Tykwer.» Camera Obscura 21 (2006): 108 - 43. Rentschler, Eric. «From New German Cinema to the Post-wall Cinema of Consensus.» Cinema and Nation. Ed. Mette Hjort and Scott MacKenzie. Routledge: London, 2000. 260 - 77. Tykwer, Tom. «Analytisch träumen. Ein Vortrag von Tom Tykwer anlässlich des Nederlands Film Festivals in Utrecht, September 2001. 15 May 2012. <http: / / www. x-filme.de/ html/ statements.html>. Tykwer, Tom. «Tykwer spricht: ein Gespräch mit dem Regisseur von Lola Rennt.» 20 August 1998. 15 May 2012. <http: / / www.artechock.de/ film/ text/ interview/ t/ tykwer_1998.htm>. Tykwer, Tom, Dir. Winterschläfer. 1997. Prokino. Verhoeven, Michael, Dir. Das schreckliche Mädchen. 1990. Arte. 16 John Blair