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Stehle October 3, 2014 REVUE D’ÉTUDES INTERCULTURELLES DE L’IMAGE JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL IMAGE STUDIES IMAGINATIONS JOURNAL OF CROSS_CULTURAL IMAGE STUDIES | REVUE D’ÉTUDES INTERCULTURELLES DE L’IMAGE Publication details, including open access policy and instructions for contributors: http://imaginations.csj.ualberta.ca “Askew Positions—Schieflagen: Depictions of Children in German Terrorism Films” Maria Stehle October 3, 2014 To Cite this Article: Stehle, Maria. “Askew Positions—Schieflagen: Depictions of Children in German Ter- rorism Films” Imaginations 5:2 (2014): Web (date accessed) 46-66. DOI: 10.17742/IM- AGE.TGVC.5-2.4 To Link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.17742/IMAGE. TGVC.5-2.4 The copyright for each article belongs to the author and has been published in this journal under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial NoDerivatives 3.0 license that allows others to share for non-commercial purposes the work with an acknowledgement of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal. The content of this article represents the author’s original work and any third-party content, either image or text, has been included under the Fair Dealing exception in the Canadian Copyright Act, or the author has provided the required publication permissions. ASKEW POSITIONS—SCHIEFLAGEN ASKEW POSITIONS—SCHIEFLAGEN: DEPICTIONS OF CHILDREN IN GERMAN TERRORISM FILMS MARIA STEHLE THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE, KNOXVILLE This essay discusses the appearance of children Cet article examine la représentation des in films that negotiate the legacies of West left- enfants dans des films qui traitent du legs wing German and global terrorism. The four du parti gauchiste de l’Allemagne de l’ouest films discussed in this essay depict children in et du terrorisme international. Les quatre Schieflagen (askew positions), but use these films analysés montrent des enfants en images to create rather different political postures critiques (Schieflagen), mais utilisent messages. In Deutschland im Herbst (1978), ces images pour transmettre des messages Die bleierene Zeit (1981) and Innere Sicherheit politiques radicalement différents. Dans (2000), children are melodramatic devices that Deutschland im Herbst (1978), Die Bleierene convey a sense of national tragedy, nostalgia Zeit (1981), et Innere Sicherheit (2000), les for “innocence,” and/or a nationally coded enfants sont des outils mélodramatiques qui sense of hope. As opposed to representing such communiquent un sens de tragédie nationale, an uncanny mixture between melodramatic de nostalgie pour l’ « innocence », et/ou un victim and national symbol, children in the sentiment d’espoir national. D’autre part, recent film collaboration Deutschland 09 au lieu de représenter un mélange inquiétant (2009) are the face of the present. Deutschland entre victime mélodramatique et symbole 09 depicts children as disconnected from national, les enfants dans le récent film German history, which relieves them of the Deutschland 09 (2009) se font symboles du burden of national representation and, as a présent. Deutschland 09 montre des enfants result, offers a potential for a less normative déconnectés de l’histoire allemande, ce qui and more diverse perspective on Germany’s les soulage du fardeau de la représentation history and present. While their missing nationale, et par conséquent offre la possibilité connection to national history leaves them d’une perspective moins normative et plus to appear detached and confused, this variée sur l’Allemagne des livres d’histoire confusion can be read as a search for different ainsi que sur l’Allemagne d’aujourd’hui. understandings of history and belonging in Bien que leur détachement face à l’histoire twenty-first century Germany. nationale les représente comme déconnectés et perdus, cette déroute peut se lire comme une quête interprétative du sens de l’histoire et de l’appartenance à l’Allemagne du vingt- et-unième siècle. IMAGINATIONS • ISSUE 5 - 2, 2014 • 46 STEHLE The online version of the British paper Daily about what roles child protagonists play in Mail calls the US American film Extremely cinematic depictions of violence, trauma, and Loud and Incredibly Close (2011) “the worst terrorism. More specifically of interest to this film ever to be nominated for Best Picture essay are depictions of children in films about at the Oscars”1 and tries to explain this political terrorism and its aftermath in the nomination by the fact that the film addresses German context. While scholarly discourse one of the most traumatic events of our times, has grappled with German terrorism films in the terrorist attacks of 9/11, by following the general, especially following the international search of a boy for traces of his father who success of the film Der Baader Meinhof was killed in the attacks. The main complaint Komplex (Baader Meinhof Complex, 2008),4 in this particular review does not refer to not many researchers have addressed the the way in which the film addresses the appearance of children, in spite of the fact that aftermath of the 9/11 attacks; it focuses on the children are rather prominent in German films portrayal of the child, which the reviewer calls that depict the effects of left-wing terrorism. “obnoxious,” “contrived,” and “trivializing.” In this essay, I argue that children in terrorism Two years prior to the premier of this film, the films are the embodiments of different kinds critically acclaimed film by Austrian director of Schieflagen, a term taken from the title of Michael Haneke, Das weiße Band (The White a short film from the collection Deutschland Ribbon, 2009), was released. Set just before the 09. I use Schieflagen to describe the “askew outbreak of WWI in a small German village, positions” that child characters take in the the town’s children are the “terrorizers.” Most context of these narratives; the term also popular media reviews read these abused allows me to explore how, through such child and suppressed children as representing a characters, films address the difficult situation generation of Germans that would later that terrorism and violence create in twentieth support Nazi Germany.2 The subtitle of the and twenty-first century Germany. The film, “eine deutsche Kindergeschichte”—“a films interpret these Schieflagen—and their German children’s story,” further emphasizes implications of Germany, German history, and what makes this film exceptional: it is a national identity—rather differently. After first children’s story in that it depicts the lives of discussing three films that link child characters children but tells a very brutal, frightening directly to Germany’s national past and tale full of mystery and suspense.3 These two identity, the second part of this essay focuses contemporary and popular films offer rather on the collaborative film project Deutschland different representations of children and 09, which complicates the connection between terror and/or terrorism. Nonetheless, both representations of children and national films choose children as central protagonists history in its depiction of children as detached to address the topics of terrorism and terror from Germany’s past. This detachment means in a broader sense. In both films, the children that rather than symbolizing a national past, also appear to be somewhat uncanny and present, and future, the child characters unpredictable; at the same time, the child in Deutschland 09 pose questions about character(s) are clearly nationally coded belonging and progress that go beyond the and intricately tied to national histories and national perspectives suggested in previous futures, be it in a search for national healing terrorism films. and recovery in post 9/11 America or as a foreboding sign of Germany’s Nazi atrocities. I understand “terrorism films” as German films that negotiate the legacy of West German National codings of child-characters in terrorism, mainly left-wing terrorism in the terrorism films pose a more general question 1970s and early 1980. The early twenty- 47 • ISSUE 5 - 2, 2014 • IMAGINATIONS ASKEW POSITIONS—SCHIEFLAGEN first century saw a wave of such films, most To offer a critical examination of the role famously Der Baader Meinhof Komplex of child protagonists in German terrorism (2008), but others include Baader (2002), Die films, I first contextualize my more detailed Innere Sicherheit (The State I am In, 2000), discussions of four German films about the docu-drama Todesspiel (1997), and the terrorism within a more general discussion documentary Black Box BRD (2001). In parts, of child protagonists in film. Then I survey this renewed interest in the mainly home- images of children in two West German films, grown terrorism that shook West Germany Deutschland im Herbst (Germany in Autumn, in the 1970s and into the 1980s is a result of 1978) and Die Bleierne Zeit (Marianne and the discussions surrounding global terrorism Julianne, 1981), and in a more recent German and the kinds of politics it produced in the film, Die Innere Sicherheit (The State I am In, aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. These films 2000). The following, more detailed, discussion about the legacies of German terrorism are of Deutschland 09 (2009) allows me to argue also part of a wave of so-called “heritage films” that some of the films in this collaborative (Koepnick, 2002, 2004) that renegotiate the film project offer new interpretations of the German past in the aftermath of unification Schieflagen terror and terrorism produces. In in—in some cases Hollywood-style—fiction the films from the 1970s and 1980s as well as and non-fiction films of the 1990s and early in Petzold’s Innere Sicherheit, children are the twenty-first century. ultimate victims of terror; at the same time they embody—and are burdened with carrying—a In this context, Deutschland 09—13 Filme national hope for a better, more peaceful and zur Lage der Nation (Germany 09—13 Films democratic future. Child protagonists are a About the State of the Nation), released in melodramatic device that creates a sense of 2009, plays a special role.
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