Analysis Of The Murderers Are Among Us

The Murderers Are Among Us The Murderers Are Among Us, directed by Wolfe Gang Staudte, is the first postwar film. The film takes place in Berlin right after the war. Susan Wallner, a young women who has returned from a concentration camp, goes to her old apartment to find Hans Mertens living there. Hans took up there after returning home from war and finding out his house was destroyed. Hans would not leave, even after Susan returned home. Later on in the film we find out Hans was a former surgeon but can no longer deal with human suffering because of his traumatic experience in war. We find out about this traumatic experience when Ferdinand Bruckner comes into the film. Bruckner, Hans’ former captain, was responsible for killing hundreds

The original title of the movie was supposed to be The Man I Will Kill, Bruckner was supposed to be shot by Hans for revenge. However, Soviets didn’t want this to influence violence. Soviets wanted the end to show peace so it would further their ideology of moving on with the past and perusing justice the moral way. As the film progresses and we learn more about the characters we see each character as a stereotype for a variety of political stances. Ferdinand Bruckner is a war criminal, who has benefited from the war by making pots out of war helmets. He puts up a good front and comes off to people as kind and friendly. We know that this isn’t the case. We see that he can be portrayed as an archetype loyal Nazi. Susan Wallner is portrayed as a model citizen from the very beginning. Right after returning home from a concentration camp she is ready to rebuild her life and she is very optimistic for the future. We also know from the film that her father opposed fascism. Hans Mertens, who struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder, cannot seem to get over the past at first. Towards the end of the film we see that he has a revelation and he, like Susan, is ready for the future. Hans seems to

One way the filmmakers did this is with the on location shots of rubble in many scenes. The characters in these shots are carefully placed to make the rubble stand out behind them. Lighting is carefully placed to illuminate the rubble and make it stand out. However, the carefully planned cinematography also plays into the overall meaning of the film and not just how it looks. The lighting, for example, influences our feelings for certain characters. Susan Wallner is always filmed in light. This is a drastic difference from how we see Hans Mertens. Hans is usually filmed with low light and is very dim. This helps show that Susan is optimistic, while Hans is pessimistic. Another way lighting is used in this film is to create shadows. Shadows are very prevalent in the last sequence of the film. Hans has confronted Bruckner and as the camera cuts back and forth to each of them we see Hans shadow keeps growing bigger and bigger behind Bruckner. We can interpret that as the shadowing is growing bigger so his Bruckner’s fear, because the dialogue coming from Bruckner is getting faster and we can also hear the fear. There are many times in the film where close ups are used to make the storyline more dramatic. One scene that comes to mind that makes use of quick cuts and close ups is in the end of the film: Susan ran in, stopping Hans from killing Bruckner. At this point we