"I was right . Yes , this war will only bring out the worst of us."
"Most people think that war is about fighting, but it's not, it's waiting. Waiting for the next attack, waiting for the next meal, waiting for the next Dawn."
War. A word that sounds distant and unfamiliar to our lives, a word that is only used in history exams and computer games, and a word that belongs to our parents.
But in fact, the catastrophe that almost spread around the world is only half a century away from us.
Before "Our Fathers", I have never seen German dramas, but the quality of German films is absolutely indisputable; "The Tin Drum", "Eavesdropping on the Storm", "The Wave", "Goodbye Lenin" and personal master: Wimwen Each of Des's works has a "German flavor" that is as difficult to describe in words as a Leica camera. And this German drama with the quality of a trilogy epic movie was warmly recommended by a friend, fortunately I did not miss it.
The whole play has three episodes and a total of 4.5 hours. Even if you watch it in one breath, you will never feel dull. You will only have emotions and nowhere to go. In "Us", there is almost no intention to sell warmth. The five protagonists and five story lines are advanced in parallel. From peace to war, from kindness to killing, from life to death, the transformation takes only one and a half hours. In their stories, you will see the greatness and insignificance of people, the changing and absurd times, the light and darkness of love.
The story begins in Berlin in 1941, where five young people face a battle of the century about to begin, but they remain carefree, ordinary and special, and they think they are going to own the whole world. They are partying late at night, drinking and singing, fearless, this is a farewell, but also for the future reunion.
The older brother has a typical Germanic face, handsome and determined, and is already the backbone of the Wehrmacht. The younger brother Friedhelm still has the childishness of a college student. He leaned against the corner to smoke, dance lazily, and even stuffed a thick poetry book into his luggage. Charly is a gentle and naive nurse who has been silently in love with her brother Wilhelm but dare not speak. Greta and Viktor were an almost perfect couple, she was German and he was Jewish, but that wasn't a problem at the time. At that time, they believed that they would be able to return to Berlin at the time of Christmas that the Führer said, but they did not guess that it would be Christmas four years later.
The war has begun.
History is not an option. Cowardice is not allowed on the battlefield. So the brother fell in the hail of bullets, so the cynicism in the eyes of the younger brother disappeared, and became the most ruthless killer, so Charly's love was broken, so Greta betrayed her beautiful body, and viktor saw Auschwitz. Everything is so cruel, everything is so desperate, like the winter of the Battle of Moscow, as if it will never end. But time passes, never stops, and people change until they are beyond recognition.
Friedhelm looked at the new soldier, with young faces, firm and confused, just like him and his brother back then. He said: Don't tell me your name, if you're still alive in four weeks, come back and tell me then. Yes, everything is not important anymore, cold, hunger, darkness, fear, are not important, only to live, only to live, is the most important.
At the end of the story, what I see is not that the wounds caused by war will never heal, but that the "evil" side of human beings is like a gene-like existence. Cruelty, indifference, doubt, cowardice, fear, and lies are all of us. A part of the body that cannot be denied. But the kindness and love in human nature also shine in the darkest moments, and it is also undeniable.
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