THE MURDERERS ARE AMONG US (1946)

Berlin, 1945, just after the Allied victory. The streets and buildings are ravaged and full of rubble. Hans is a former doctor who has been mentally damaged by the war. Because of trauma—we discover later that he witnessed an atrocity involving murdered children—he can no longer practice medicine and stays drunk as much as he can, having taken up residence in an apartment with broken windows. Susanne, former occupant of the apartment, has just been released from a concentration camp where she's been since 1942. She had a long-term lease on her rooms and returns to take up residence, but Hans refuses to leave so she agrees to let him stay. Slowly, the two become friendly, and he expresses hope that someday, he will be capable of loving her. Mondschein, an ailing optometrist who lives in the building, has been waiting for the return of his son, a German soldier, and goes to a medium to see if she can tell him if his son is still alive. She has a vision of the two of them meeting on a bridge so he keeps hoping. Susanne discovers that Bruckner, a soldier that Hans knew and assumed was dead, is still alive and she encourages him to visit. He is reluctant and when he does, he takes a gun, intending to shoot Bruckner, who was responsible for the massacre that Hans witnessed. He is interrupted by an emergency request for help for an ill child who is having trouble breathing. Hans overcomes his aversion to doctoring and successfully helps the child. It would appear that he is starting on a road to recovery. He and Susanne become a couple and he gets a medical job, but the arrival of Christmas leads to a tragedy for Mondschein and a renewal of trauma for Hans (the massacre happened at Christmas), and on Christmas Eve, Hans sets out to exact revenge against Bruckner.

This was the first feature film to come out of Germany after the war. It has been labeled as the first in a series of "rubble films" which were shot on location in the bombed-out streets of German cities. They usually addressed issues of reconstructing both cities and lives, and often involved the avoidance or acceptance of collective guilt over the war. Directed by Wolfgang Staude, the movie has astonishing visuals, using what I assume are actual sites of destruction for an authentic atmosphere (though it's possible that the apartment scenes were shot in a studio), and a style which invokes German expressionism of the 1920s—lots of shadows and tilted camera angles. An atmosphere of dark gloom hangs over the whole film; near the climax, there's a gorgeous shot of snow in a ruined church, and a remarkable shadow effect as Hans approaches Bruckner. The ending is cautiously optimistic but does not wipe away the darkness that has built, in the film or for the characters. Both leading actors are excellent. Hildegard Knef (Susanne) went on to a successful career in both Germany and Hollywood; Wilhelm Borchert (Hans) continued acting in Germany and also did a lot of German-language dubbing of Hollywood films. Neither of them (both pictured above) strike a false note in their performances. [Spoiler:] The director's intended ending has Hans killing Bruckner on Christmas Eve, but the final version instead has Susanne talking Hans into turning Bruckner into the authorities, which dramatically is probably the better ending. If there's a fault in the script, it's that neither lead is fully fleshed out—that's especially a problem with Susanne who begins as the central character. We learn nothing about her camp stay and she seems remarkably unscarred by her experience. The focus shifts to Hans who is given more backstory as Susanne recedes into the background. But this isn't a major flaw. This noir-flavored melodrama is well worth searching out. [TCM]