9 - Dealing with Cancer, Dealing with Love: Gender, Relationships, and the GDR Medical System in Lothar Warneke's Die Beunruhigung

Summary

Lothar Warneke's Die Beunruhigung (Apprehension, 1982), a lowbudget, black-and-white so-called Alltagsfilm (everyday film) or Frauenfilm (women's film) that features elements of documentary style, was among the most popular DEFA productions. It received several prizes, among others the so-called Großen Steiger (Head Miner), the audience jury's prize for the most effective movie screened within the past two years. Even though it sheds light on the situation of women in the GDR in the early 1980s, it is, however, not among the most discussed DEFA Frauenfilme of the 1970s and 1980s, like Heiner Carow's Die Legende von Paul und Paula (The Legend of Paul and Paula, 1973), Egon Gunther's Der Dritte (Her Third, 1972), and Konrad Wolf and Wolfgang Kohlhaase's Solo Sunny (1980). More remarkable still, existing scholarship tends to focus on how the protagonist, Inge Herold (played by Christine Schorn), takes charge of her life and seeks a fulfilling love relationship when she finds herself in a time of crisis after she is diagnosed with breast cancer. Even though “the question of how individuals cope with illness, pain, depression and death [is] at the forefront of Warneke's controversial film,” the influence of the healthcare system on the protagonist's ability to fight cancer and seek a reciprocated romantic relationship remains largely undiscussed. This approach, which reduces the medical diagnosis to a trigger for Inge's decision to scrutinize her interpersonal relationships, may be attributable to Erika Richter, the dramaturg. In her epilogue to Helga Schubert's film script, Richter stresses the significance of illness as an existential threat motivating an individual to rethink her life.

Yet this approach does not do justice to the complexity of the film, which addresses issues the government observed suspiciously—for example, illness linked with problems in interpersonal relationships. To comprehend the importance of Die Beunruhigung for a GDR audience, we need to consider the significance of film in the GDR, and analyze the cancerous female body—which quite literally contains the ills of society— within the idiosyncrasies of the GDR healthcare system.