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After the Fall: YG interviews director of Berlin Wall film

YG gets the inside scoop on the After the Fall documentary from co-director Eric Black

Brandenburger Tor and Wall, Photo: Flickr (CC) Songkran

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, only few traces of this former barrier between East and West remain. Throughout the city, new architecture and infrastructure cover the ground where the Wall once stood. In many places, visitors need look closely to know the Berlin Wall ever even existed.

But what about the stories of the people whose lives have been touched – directly or indirectly – by the concrete border between the two Germanys? Have they also moved on and never looked back, much like the Berlin cityscape?

Those questions are at the center of After the Fall, an 88-minute documentary made in 1999 by the German-American filmmaking duo Frauke Sandig from Berlin and Eric Black from San Francisco.

Filmed for the most part within one kilometer of where the Wall once stood, the documentary introduces a kaleidoscopic mix of characters who share their stories with the camera.

We meet Hagen Koch, a former GDR security officer put in charge of demolishing the Wall in 1990 and now runs a Wall museum. Also Manfred Fischer, a pastor who lobbied to preserve a section of original Wall at Bernauer Strasse and considers the Wall “criminal evidence.” Not to forget a group of British alternative pharmacists who use pieces of the Wall as the active ingredient in a homeopathic remedy.

All stories are told by the characters themselves, without additional voice-over or narrated commentary. “We always work this way,” said co-director Eric Black about collaborating with Frauke Sandig. “It has to do with our underlying philosophy for filmmaking, which is presenting viewers with a lot of information that is often contradictory, and then letting them make up their own minds about it.”

The resulting narrative in After the Fall is astounding and full of unexpected revelations. Ultimately, the documentary leaves no doubt that the Wall’s legacy remains: “You cannot erase all those years, they are still a part of me,” concludes Annette Simon, a psychotherapist who grew up in East Berlin in the film.

After the Fall has been translated into 13 languages and broadcast on public television around the world. It won a German Camera Prize and a Golden Spire at the San Francisco International Film Festival. Eric Black and Frauke Sandig have also collaborated on the critically acclaimed Frozen Angels (2004), and are currently working on Ends of the Earth, a new documentary about the destruction of global wildlife and indigenous cultures.

Shortly before joining Frauke Sandig on the set in Mexico, Eric Black took the the time to talk to Young Germany.

How did the idea for After the Fall come about?

I had just moved from Rome to Berlin at the time. I was walking around town with my camera trying to photograph the Wall – and it wasn’t there! I told [filmmaking partner] Frauke [Sandig] and she just said, “Why would anybody want to see the Wall anyway?” And that started a whole discussion for us.

But you thought the disappearance of the Wall was significant?

One thing about being a foreigner in a foreign land is that you see certain things pretty clearly. I thought, why would Berlin take down the Wall? Would Paris take down the Eiffel Tower? Or would London take down Big Ben? Finally it clicked with Frauke and we started working on the film.

How did you go about selecting the really remarkable set of individuals that appear in the film?

They all had something to do with saving the Wall in some form. Some were obvious choices, like Reverend Fischer who was trying to save a segment of the Wall. And [Former GDR security officer] Hagen Koch was an obvious one, or [psychotherapist] Annette Simon, because she had written a book about the Wall. Surprisingly, others had never been interviewed, like Winfried Prem with his crushing machine and accordion, who ended up receiving many requests after the film. They were all equally important to telling the story of the Wall.

Was everyone happy with the way they came across in the film?

We showed the film to all the protagonists. We were a bit worried about Hagen Koch. In the film he wears his [East German state security] uniform and walks around the set of a movie at Babelsberg [studios]. He was so happy that day and at the end of the scene we asked him why. He said, “You know I was only a major in the Stasi [security forces].” And the uniform he wore gave him a higher rank! Which was also such an insight into his character. But he loved the film and would answer questions at our screenings. He also gave us photos taken between the two sides of the Wall, where you could never get a camera at the time.

After the Fall leaves it up to viewers to draw their own conclusions. What is yours?

The film itself is my answer! Showing that there is not just one story. Berlin is a city of four million people and the Wall probably touched more people’s lives than any other object.

Did you ever try the homeopathic “Berlin Wall Remedy” from the film?

We did! At first I didn’t believe any of it, but Janice Micaleff, the homeopath had given us some as an antidote to negative energy. And when we were working on the film we did have such a negative mood in the editing room for a while. So finally, our editor said: “That’s because of the Wall! We need to get rid of it!” So we started taking the remedy and that made it better.

The film starts off with an eerie atmosphere and historian Brian Ladd talking about the ghosts of the past. Are the ghosts still present 20 years after the fall?

In the last ten years there has been an enormous attempt to sanitize Berlin. They were taking every bullet hole out of every wall, attempting to turn Berlin into Frankfurt. But like reverend Manfred Fischer said in his analogy with the [surface marker] buoys and the dynamite: No matter what you do, it’s all still there beneath the surface. And you can feel it. Especially in the contrast between what is going on in the city of Berlin and surrounding Brandenburg with Neo-Nazis and unemployment. These massive problems that have not gone away, but might have gotten worse even 20 years after the “Wende.”

What would be an appropriate way to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall?

Maybe to rebuild a part of the Wall just the way it was. Or by rebuilding Nordbahnhof [train station and border crossing], which was my favorite place in Berlin as a kid, because that was where you had to go to get across. There are young children under the age of 25 now who have never even seen the Wall or have any idea where it stood. So this structure that is so present in my mind and those of the people who lived with the Wall is just not apparent in their mind. It’s incredible to think that something so massive and symbolic is simply gone, and an entire generation has no way of imagining it.

Thank you very much for the interview.