Three things...

1)A FILM:
The White Ribbon (Das Weisse Band)

For: Fans of Ingmar Bergman, people who like psychological thrillers about serial crimes committed in small towns, art house buffs.

About: A series of crimes that unsettle a small village in North Germany before the outbreak of WWI. The general atmosphere of brutality, small-mindedness and denial in a seemingly moral community leaves no one unaffected. But who is responsible for the crimes? The film leaves many questions unanswered while offering an allegory for German decline into WWI, nationalism and fascism.

Seriously, you have to go see this film! I saw it in Hamburg last weekend and let's just say its portrayal of North Germany,the cinematography, the aesthetic, the dialogue...it all felt very spot-on. This is definitely a film to remember.

2) AN EVENT:
Mauerfall: The Fall of the Berlin Wall, November 9, 1989

Source: Die Welt
When: This upcoming Monday, November 9, will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall and German reunification.

Cool, right? Definitely! It's just that for the past month or so, Berlin has been in something like a state of emergency. And most people seem to be sick of the way the wall has become fetishized into a toothless commercial symbol used to sell everything from cell phones to toothbrushes, not to mention with the fact that the media are having a field day with inane 1989-themed coverage of the event, with stories like "Where were YOU on November 9, 1989?" (A question to which most people don't have anything more original to answer than "I was sitting in front of the TV drinking a beer.")

Commemorating the end of the era of communism in East Germany also brings with it an inevitable stream of GDR apologists who moan about their disillusionment with the West, and a predictable Western counter-attack by intellectuals moaning about their corresponding disillusionment with "the Rest."

Fun fact: This is actually really awesome --> the famous department store KaDeWe (Kaufhaus des Westens, or Department Store of the West) is officially changing is name to KaDeBe (Kaufhaus der Berliner, or Department Store of the Berliners) on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of reunification. This is change I can believe in!

3) A PERSON:
Annemarie Schwarzenbach

Swiss writer/traveller/photographer/lover/journalist/rebel

- She travelled to Afghanistan in 1939 in a convertible.
- She was the lover of Erika Mann, sister of Thomas Mann.
- Carson McCullers, one of my favourite writers ever, was hopelessly in love with her and wrote her love letters.
- She was a committed anti-fascist despite her reactionary family.
- She takes an incredible picture.

(Source: Marianne Breslauer)
That's all for today!