Red Stars Upon the Field

(Rote Sterne überm Feld, Laura Laabs, Germany, 2024)

“If the ghosts can visit our time, we can visit theirs”. This freewheeling tour of 20th and 21st century German history assumes an almost supernatural agency, which is concentrated in its plucky heroine, Tine (Hannah Ehrlichmann).

A member of the “Aesthetic Left” – which hopes to bring social change through daring acts of art and imagination – Tine hides from police by taking refuge in her East German birthplace of Bad Kleinen, a rural village seemingly stuck in a previous age.

History becomes unfixed, however, when a skeleton is dredged up from the lake. Is it related to Nazism? Terrorism? And how does it entangle the family histories of the local inhabitants?

When Tine begins making a short film with teenagers, further layers of speculation are added to the ever-widening puzzle.

Writer-director Laura Laabs (herself born in Bad Kleinen), who has previously made acclaimed shorts and TV episodes, delivers this story through a bold, hip, upbeat mixture of styles.

Realism is frequently violated; some scenes play out in a pastiche of generic TV formats; quotations from philosophers including Walter Benjamin provide a poetic narration.

The ambition of Red Stars Upon the Field is large – and it sometimes falters, slipping into posture and pretension. But it is, at least, grounded in charming details of interpersonal interaction and the close observation of landscape and customs.

© Adrian Martin 27 November 2024