December 2001 - Nr. 12
"Der Tunnel" - Cold War Thrills and Real Life Chills
TWIG - To coincide with the 40th anniversary of the erection of the Berlin Wall, Der Tunnel, a Cold War thriller and a true story is being screened as part of the AFI 2001 film festival in Los Angeles this week. During its 28-year existence, the Berlin Wall spanned 103 miles, stood 13 feet high and inspired some daring and inventive escape attempts (more than 100 of the 5,000 people who tried to cross the deadly divider were killed doing so). One of the earliest and most spectacularly successful of those breakouts was made by Hasso Herschel, an East German swimming champion who defected to West Berlin shortly after the wall was built, leaving behind a beloved sister and her family. The story of his nine-month collaboration with a handful of others desperate to evacuate loved ones from the tightening clutches of a totalitarian regime is gripping and affecting.
The Los Angeles Times has hailed Der Tunnel as "flat out the most exciting movie from Germany since Das Boot." Split-second action sequences and dashing heroics never overshadow the intimate personal connections that hold together the characters both East and West. The film’s first-rate cast stars Heino Ferch (Winter Sleepers, Comedian Harmonists), Nicolette Krebitz, Alexandra Maria Lara, Sebastian Koch, and Mehmet Kurtulus. The film was directed by Roland Suso Richter (Alles Paletti, After the Truth), one of Germany’s most prominent young directors. He attended a screening in New York on November 1 to field audience questions and to receive their warm applause for this powerful work.
