Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1185664
10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 17 NOVEMBER 2019 FILM FILM THE essential absurdity of over-determined national bor- ders is an easily parodied fact of modern life. At best (though really, at worst), they take on a sublimely Kafkaesque form: leaving us baffled at how gov- ernments and relevant institu- tions insist on separating peo- ple from their loved ones and simply barring them to travel on the basis of an essentially arbitrary national line. There comes a point when concerns about security and territorial sovereignty cease to make any sense in the grand scheme of things – and especially in their micro-based variant – and suddenly the fault lines are re- vealed for what they are: the panicked wranglings of na- tions and politicians nervously clutching at what they think they can control, sometimes bolstered by public sentiment, sometimes not. The fact that these concerns have once again bubbled back up into public conscious- ness thanks to both Donald Trump's electoral pledge to build a literal wall between Mexico and the US, and the rising tide of far-right, 'hard- border' preaching, sentiment all across Europe makes Chris- tian Schwochow's lighthearted take on the Bornholmer Straße border crossing episode of 9 November, 1989 something of a bittersweet pill to swallow. First aired in 2014 and adapt- ed by screenwriters Heide and Rainer Schwochow from the book 'The Man Who Opened the Wall' by Gerhard Haase- Hindenberg, 'Bornholmer Straße' recounts the chaos that ensued after Socialist Par- ty official Günter Schabowski somewhat mistakenly de- clared, during a 9 November 1989 press conference, that the border between East and West Germany should be opened. The surprise public announce- ment leaves the panicked bor- der guards scrambling to deal with the situation as their su- periors remain none the wiser: they cannot give them any concrete orders, because they have no orders to give. At the centre of the mael- strom is Lieutenant Colonel Harald Schäfer (Charly Hüb- ner) – drawn from the real-life figure of Harald Jäger – who starts his evening believing that his incontinence would be the worst of his problems, but whose night devolves into something far more pressing as the crowds pile on and on, and the weight of the nation's most urgent diplomatic issue piles onto his shoulders. Prior to said chaos, however, the film establishes its tone with a telling – and likely fic- tional – little episode: a dog has snuck past the border, and the officials under Harald's watch are confused as to how to deal with what technically constitutes an act of border trespass. But an act of literal deflation greets us even earlier on in the film, however, as Harald is shown struggling with his in- continence over the workplace toilet seat. Oscar-baiting heritage cin- ema this ain't, and it's all the better for it. Neither is it a vulgarisation of events, however. Harald's digestive troubles are not just a gross-out gag: they are also a none-too-subtle allegory for the stalemate that his country is stuck in thanks to the bor- der – a border that Harald and his colleagues have built and continue to maintain with their blood, sweat and tears, fortified by their belief that it was the right thing to do in the interest of peace and security. The Schwochows' canny script Screening at the German- Maltese Circle next week to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall, Christian Schwochow's film finds humour in bureaucratic absurdity Teodor Reljic Breaking down the barriers