Werner Hochbaum

Illustrates both the powerlessness of the ordinary worker as well as an intimate portrait of the joys and sorrows of a small group of people in the harbor section of Hamburg.

German drama from 1933 directed by Heinrich George & Werner Hochbaum.

"Brüder", a film directed by Herr Werner Hochbaum ( who was a remarkable film director in the talkie 30's ), was one of those films which showed the harsh daily life of the working class. The film depicts, in a kind of fictional documentary, the 1896 Hamburg dockworkers' strike: the workers receive meagre wages for hard work and live under miserable conditions and finally go on strike.

Morgen beginnt das Leben is arguably the biggest stunner of the Third Reich because it doesn't fit at all with the requirements of the era instead predating Antonioni and similar directors in its experimental mood. The story is very simple, a murderer will be released from prison and his wife is supposed to get him, but they miss each other which leads the man to self-doubt and anxious wandering and brooding.

Luise Ullrich and Mathias Wieman are the lovers and want to marry but he has to join the soldiers and since he doesn't want her to end up in the variete her parents have, he tries to tuck her away with his parents in the country, but with no success. The film makes progressively clear how mismatched the two really are, especially in a fine camera pan involving their respective uniforms, hers being already a variete costume. Finally the crisis leads to violence.

A look at a day in the life of two people at opposite ends of the social strata.

Expressionistic devices depict the nervous breakdown of a young physician whose patient has died,on whom he had tried out a new serum contrary to his superior's orders. (imdb)