I am always amazed when a documentary about such a simple subject as a place can be so moving and leave me so emotional. That is not to say that a place is necessarily simple, of course, as this film more than proves. In Himmel, unter der Erde perfectly displays this, and in such a beautiful style.
The film centers around the Weißensee Jewish Cemetery in Berlin, a cemetery founded in 1870 and which survived World War II by some stroke of fate – the Allies’ bombing of Berlin actually damaged it more than the Nazis did. Throughout the ages, it has gone from mass amounts of wealthy burials to relative disrepair, during Second World War and the resulting socialist DDR regime. The cemetery’s history is thoroughly discussed, but what is captivating is not the location itself, but the people who are shown and their personal connections to it, as well as their connections to the tragic history of the European Jewish Diaspora.
In the film, we meet many different people with many different outlooks on life. We meet a man returning from the USA to Europe, where he ponders with great emotion why he survived the Holocaust and his family didn’t. We meet the people who work at the cemetery, who inevitably discuss their philosophies of death with simplicity and wisdom, as well as their opinions of Jewish tradition and the changing times. One man was actually saved from death in the Holocaust because of the graveyard – one of his quotes I found particularly affecting: “…and so you can see, Jewish children could laugh in 1942 – but only in the cemetery, because there nobody forbade it.”
The style of this documentary is perhaps what gives the whole thing such power, and is its greatest trait: it is very understated and soft-spoken. If this film was made differently at all, if it was given any sense of melodrama or forced heavy-handed emotional impact, it would have appeared propagandic and derivative. Instead, we experience, through the discussion of a place, a beautiful emotional journey through the years of Jewish people in Berlin, from 1870, through World War I, Weimar Republic, World War II, the following division of the country, until the modern times and its current restoration. The Holocaust is a personal and difficult event for me to consider or discuss, but this film forced me to allow it to affect me.
It’s a beautiful film, and even if you are not Jewish, if you would like to see a documentary with such strong humanity, view this film.
Showtimes for Himmel, unter der Erde (AKA In Heaven Underground):
Sun, Jul 24 – 11:00am (Castro Theatre)
Sat, Aug 6 – 4:40pm (Roda Theatre – Berkeley)
