The Architects (1990) User Reviews (3)

A brilliant depiction of East Germany's final years

[hakof · 9/10 · 22 September 2009]

"The Architects" is a brilliant depiction of life in the final years of East Germany's existence. Intellectuals who are on the verge of middle age are stagnating professionally and suffocating intellectually. They can't talk freely; they can't think freely. They have a burning desire to reform and to improve their little socialist country, but obstacles are everywhere. An older, inflexible generation holds on while paying mere lip-service to youth, progress, and innovation. What will happen? Is change possible?

At 38 years of age, Daniel Brenner is a no-longer-young architect looking for his first big break. One of his former professors decides to help him out and introduces Daniel to an older architect who is now a city-planning administrator and Communist Party official. Daniel is asked to put together a team of "young" architects to enter a competition to design a town center. A team of handpicked architects whom he knew in his college days, they propose a center complete with a post office, grocery story, restaurants, cinema, theater, bowling alley, art gallery, and monuments, all situated in architecture that is innovative for East Germany. It signals a fresh start and a new responsiveness.

But here is where Daniel's problems begin. The very officials who appointed him are resistant to change. The proposal is too expensive, too difficult to build, too innovative, too intellectually honest, too everything. Daniel tries to win them over, but can he make a difference? Meanwhile, members of his team are losing faith in him and in the system. Even worse, as he gives everything to push for the proposal, his personal life is falling apart around him. His wife is bored with the monotony of life in East Germany and resentful about the lost chances in her life. Will Daniel have any achievements in his life, or will he be a professional failure, divorced, and trapped in country that doesn't want his input?

This movie was filmed in and around East Berlin in 1989 and 1990. The scenery is stark and accurate. This movie had the bad fortune to be released as East Germany was falling apart and reunification was underway. Audiences no longer cared to dwell on how stultifying East Germany had been. They wanted to look forward. But 20+ years later, this film is a moving and accurate depiction of what life was like for ordinary, educated people slowly being crushed by The System.

The Blues Architects??

[peapulation · 2/10 · 21 November 2008]

Here is yet another deeply flawed German film. I am not a fan of German cinema in general. In fact it generally looked pretty bleak since the end of the expressionist era. There have been rare exceptions, with films like Goodbye Lenin and the recently successful The Lives of Others, but the exceptions really are quite rare.

In this East German production, there is a message. The message is the one of reclusion of people within the East German boarders. The wish for the East Germans to live a life of more freedom and the prevention of that wish that comes from the politicians and important people. In this film, the people are represented by a group of ambitious architects that set about bringing some radical changes in East German architecture, and in the planning of a mall. However, the people in higher places keep pushing them down, not agreeing with their avant-guard ideals that seem to be an attack on the government.

The message is never really conveyed. The story pitfalls quite regularly into clichés, as main character Daniel has problems with the wife, yet another wife from an East German production, that wants more from life. In fact, she has another lover, files for divorce and takes his daughter off to Switzerland. Again, the idea could have been an interesting message on the wishes of the East Germans to change their lives which they feel they are wasting, but that never comes across, thanks to a horrible script that certainly doesn't help the actors, who are also in turn terrible.

What to say of the non-existent direction of Peter Kahane, unknown German director who should well remain that way. Here is a director with no talent, and when he wants to show the world that he does have talent, he comes across as cheesy. Like in the "It's a Wonderful Life" framings of Daniel's family, hugging and kissing, to show how united they are. That is simply terrible. And the movie never stops feeling like a bad TV-film, thanks to horrible cinematography and an editing that never helps the pacing of the dull plot (again, the main defect lies in the script).

There is one scene that is quite touching. When Daniel's daughter, towards the end of the film, calls her father, telling him that she is on a school tour in West Berlin. There is his chance to catch a glimpse of her. So, he stand on the other side of the wall, but does not see her. This is a touching scene, and, for what it's worth, that minute out of one hundred other useless ones, is quite good.

But the fights that Daniel has with his wife are never believable, because they don't have any. The whole sequence is terrible, and so surreal because there never is a big fight. I mean, she is being terribly selfish. She is taking his daughter to Switzerland, away from him, and she is the one who files for divorce, just when he is starting to build up on his career.

As for the rest of the story, on the architectural restrictions, it's just plain boring. It's not even admirable to think that this film came about during the Berlin Wall era because it was released on the year after it fell.

To finish it all, I must say, what this film also lacked and made the whole thing more boring, was lack of comic relief. The director obviously wasn't a fan of Hitchcock. And Comic Relief was obviously needed in some parts of the film, but it never comes about. In fact, the funniest thing about it is the (probably involuntary) comparison that it can have with the Blues Brothers, when at the start of the film, Daniels gathers up his team (one member of that team more annoying and stubborn than the other) just as the Blues brothers gather up the members of their band in the omonimous film. I must hence advise you to watch the Blues Brothers instead of this, it may not have as important a message, but overall, it is a much better film.

Pretty bleak East German movie that comes short in terms of being the character study it aspires to be

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 20 February 2019]

"Die Architekten" or "The Architects" is an East German film from 1990, so this one is already almost 30 years old and it was directed by Peter Kahane (probably his most known career effort), who is also one of several writers working on this film that runs for slightly over 100 minutes, so not a really long or short film for a full feature. If you know a bit about German history, then you will immediately think reading the year 1990 that this was very late for a film from the GDR because this was way after the Fall of the Berlin Wall. And you would be correct. So it should not be surprising by any means that this movie is far from supporting the political system of the country it is from. You could say it is a bit daring and bold and it is probably true, even if I would say calling it "brave" may be a bit too much. But I don't really want to write anything else about the political context. Lets focus on the film itself because it also does not really try too hard to make a political impact. It aspires more to be a character study. But sadly it is not a very good one. It is perfectly fine that the characters all come off as pretty bleak and emotionless if that is the idea behind the approach, but if you take that route, then you need to deliver in other departments like for example be devastating, depressing or sobering. But I would not really use any of these adjectives to describe this movie. The emotional component I would have liked here is virtually non-existent and the actors do not really succeed in elevating the mediocre material either. So I am actually surprised that this movie did not feel much longer than it actually was. The only thing remotely interesting here is the idea of architecture that is a bit of not just controversial, but actually contradictory to create something new from zero in a country that is about to turn to zero and stop existing. But enough with politics now. As for the cast, even I as a German film buff struggled to really recognize any of the cast members here from their names or faces. This includes lead actor Naumann too I must say, may he still rest in peace. Funnily enough, Judith Richter is a contender for most known cast member now as she really managed to transform from the child actress she was back then into a respected grown-up actress for quite a while now. Oh yeah, Jörg Schüttauf is also in this one, so he is certainly more known than Richter, one of the most successful actors from the GDR these days and one of not too many who really managed to keep their career going in united Germany after the reunification. Now we are drifting a bit away again, back to this film. All in all, I must say I expected something better judging from the rating here. There may be a bit of personal bias, but definitely not all. I give this film a thumbs-down. not recommended.