Cinema
Under the Bridges
Unter den Brücken
Helmut Käutner · 1946
Synopsis
Hendrik and Willy, young bargemen, jointly own a barge on which they live, between Berlin and Rotterdam, and begin to dream of a more settled life. One summer evening, with their convoy moored near a bridge over the Havel, they notice a young woman in tears leaning over the water, who throws a ten-mark note into it. Hendrik offers to take her back to Berlin on board. Both fall in love with Anna, each in his own way, and each hides it from the other.
Context
The film was shot from May to October 1944 in Berlin, Potsdam and the Havelland, when the front was already reaching Germany. Completed before the capitulation, it was shown only after its fall: presented at the Locarno festival in 1946, it was not released in Germany until September 1950. Käutner takes up in it the manner of the poetic realism of the European films of his time. The Murnau Foundation issued a remastered digital copy in 2021.
Who it is for
A black and white film of about an hour and forty minutes, shot largely on location, on the water and in the ports.
Prizes and reception
Ranked eighteenth of the hundred most important German films by more than three hundred specialists, in 1995.