Nikolaikirche. - movie reviews

Christian Century, March 13, 1996 by James M. Wall

ONE COULD NOT VISIT Berlin in the 450th anniversary year of Martin Luther's death without making a pilgrimage to Wittenberg, the city in which Luther began the Protestant Reformation. His tomb lies in a place of honor in the Schlosskirche, where Luther posted his 95 defiant challenges to the pope's authority. To reach Wittenberg from Berlin, one travels south on the autobahn past now-empty Soviet army barracks, passing at highway speed through areas where border crossings once delayed travelers for hours. After an hour and a half on the autobahn, a smaller highway takes the pilgrim to the Elba River, not far from the spot where American and Soviet troops met in the final days of World War II. One passes outmoded, nearly vacant chemical plants in what was once East Germany's thriving industrial region. The more efficient factories in the western part of the country have replaced many of these plants. At one operation near Wittenberg, the number of employees has been cut from 8,000 to 700.

Wandering through Luther's city and reflecting on the strife in Luther's career, I saw similarities to more recent struggles in Germany that led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall. In Luther's life, religion regularly interacted with politics. His initial success in reforming the church was possible in part because the cultivated the support of political leaders who protected him, and who eventually separated their states from the authority of the Roman Catholic Church.

Two films that I had just seen at the Berlin Film Festival focused on the interaction of faith and secular power. Nikolaikirche, directed by Frank Beyer and based on a highly respected novel by East German author Erich Loest, records some decisive moments in Die Wende, the turn from communism to freedom. The movie re-creates events at Leipzig's St. Nicholas (Lutheran) Church during the peaceful revolution of 1989. Communist officials in Leipzig came very close to applying the "Chinese solution"--using massive force to put down public demonstrations. Those demonstrations began as prayer meetings across the city. The nation's economy was falling apart, and the younger generation especially was calling attention to environmental pollution and the threat of nuclear war and demanding freedom to travel.

Many if not most of those who prayed in the churches and then walked the streets with lighted candles to express opposition to communist policies were not committed Christians. But they found in the church a place where opposition to oppression could be voiced. The pastor at St. Nicholas acknowledged that the church was open to nonbelievers as well as believers. On one occasion, the pews were filled with government officials and university students who had been sent to foil the demonstration. But the pastor shrewdly "reserved" the balconies for the demonstrators.

On the night of October 8, 1989, more than 70,000 citizens mobilized in the streets of Leipzig. Before the march, the St. Nicholas pastor admonished the demonstrators to be nonviolent: "Put down your rocks." Meanwhile, security officials waited for instructions from Moscow and Berlin on using force to subdue the demonstrators. The orders never came, and the police gave up. A month later the Berlin Wall fell. The security chief who wanted to subdue the rebellion is shown in the film staring out at the crowd in front of his headquarters. "We planned everything," he says. "We were prepared for everything, except for candles and prayers."

Nikolaikirche was originally made as a mini-series for German television, and a shortened version is now available as a feature film. Loest's novel has not yet been translated into English, and the film is without an American distributor--two facts that should be noted by film and publishing officials in the U.S.

The film Hearts and Minds also focuses on a transfer of political power. Directed and written by Ralph Ziman, it is set in the final years of white rule in South Africa. The central figure is a police officer, "someone we all know," says Ziman, the kind of person "now walking the streets in my country." South African stage actor Danny Keogh plays the white officer, and he told a festival audience his challenge was to make understandable an unattractive man--someone who grew up in a society that condoned and indeed encouraged racial prejudice.

The officer is directed to assassinate an African National Congress leader living in exile in Lusaka, Zambia. To carry out his mission he infiltrates the ANC, joins some of its members in skirmishes against white troops, and becomes one of their toughest fighters. Before he can carry out his assignment, however, Nelson Mandela is released from prison, which changes the political climate overnight. Seeking instructions, he is told that his mission is `terminated." The enemy is now in charge.

Issues of motive and guilt are central in both pictures, and while religion is not in the forefront of Hearts and Minds (except that the assassin is a churchgoing family man), it is crucial in South Africa's future. President Mandela, realizing that police officers like the one in Hearts and Minds are indeed walking the streets, has appointed a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, headed by Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Its task, he told commission members at a church service last month, is to help South Africans "come to terms with the past in ways which will enable us to face the future as a united nation at peace with itself." Relying on voluntary statements, the commission will seek to identify political crimes committed by both sides in the antiapartheid struggle.