1 - Einmal ist keinmal (1955)

Summary

EINMAL IST KEINMAL, one of the few Heimatfilme ever made in the GDR, was not only Konrad Wolf's first film but also his diploma film for the State Institute of Cinematography in Moscow. Wolf had not originally planned to film this script, which is admittedly in a genre and a style one would not associate with this director, best known for antifascist films such as Ich war neunzehn and Sterne. His original idea for a screenplay, titled “Weg in die Heimat,” and based on a sketch written originally in Russian, dealt with a main character who, like both Wolf himself and his later protagonist Gregor Hecker, is caught between the Soviet Union and Germany. This proposal was rejected by the Hauptverwaltung Film of the Kulturministerium der DDR, and Wolf ended up with the scenario we now know. Yet the thematics of a return to Heimat remain, if displaced from the original difference USSR-Germany to that of FRG and GDR. Einmal ist keinmal tells the story of composer Peter Wesely, who is on a visit to his East German uncle in the Saxon town Klingenthal (known for its production of musical instruments), and falls in love with Anna, a worker in an accordion factory and an amateur musician herself. Peter is tired of having to play mechanical, Americanized commercial “Boogie-Woogie” to earn his bread in the West, and thus the traditional folk musical culture of the East (coded as authentic, natural, and healthy) is a relief to him. He stays at first with his uncle Edeltanne in Klingenthal, where he is soon asked to compose a variety of different pieces: one for the accordion factory, for orchestra and accordion, one for his uncle's folk ensemble, and one for a youthful Schlager group. At first he resists the offer to write a Schlager, incurring Anna's displeasure; that his accordion piece is written for another woman, a virtuoso named Marie Alvert, also makes Anna jealous. Finally, however, all these stock-comic obstacles to his love are overcome, and Peter's composition for accordion, solo voice, and orchestra, incorporating local folk music, is sung by Anna herself, who is reconciled with Peter at the end.