美国国家公共电台 NPR Germany's 'In The Fade' Flips The Script On The Terrorism Film

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In recent years, films about terrorism have become a kind of genre 1. They're often geopolitical thrillers 2 or espionage 3 dramas. Well, a new film from Germany takes a different and more intimate approach. It's called "In The Fade." It's Germany's entry to the Oscars, and the film tells the individual story of a survivor 4 picking up the pieces of her broken life. NPR's Bilal Qureshi reports.

BILAL QURESHI, BYLINE 5: German filmmaker Fatih Akin 6 says the constant barrage 7 of terrorism news misses a crucial detail.

FATIH AKIN: You don't know nothing about those people who died. It's just numbers - 30 people died, 135 people died. And you don't know nothing about the left ones - the mothers, the parents, the children. But what you do get to know immediately is the murderer was Abu Jihad I-Don't-Know-What, you know? And his father says something like, my son never did something wrong, you know? You know everything about the murderers. I was more interested about the victim.

QURESHI: So his new film, "In The Fade," focuses on one of those left behind. It's the story of a wife and a mother named Katja.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ANONYMOUS 8 CLUB")

COURTNEY BARNETT: (Singing) Just you and me.

QURESHI: She's driving to a Turkish neighborhood in Hamburg to pick up her husband and 6-year-old son. She sees flashing lights, the street is cordoned 9 off, and it's obvious something is very wrong.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "IN THE FADE")

DIANE KRUGER: (As Katja Sekerci, speaking German).

QURESHI: I have to get to my family, she screams as the camera reveals the bombed-out remains 10 of her husband's office. Katja is played by Diane Kruger. Before filming, she spent months with families who've experienced that kind of loss.

KRUGER: Families that couldn't say goodbye to their loved ones because there's nobody left or how mothers deal with the death of their children. So just listening to that is something that I will never forget.

QURESHI: The police in the film are less empathetic. Katja's husband is a German of Kurdish background, and the interrogating 11 officer immediately assumes he was involved with Islamists.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "IN THE FADE")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character, speaking German).

KRUGER: (As Katja Sekerci, speaking German).

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character, speaking German).

QURESHI: Was he religious? Was he involved with the mafia, the detective asks. "In The Fade" flips 12 the script on the terrorism film. It turns out Katja's husband was murdered by neo-Nazis 13.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "IN THE FADE")

KRUGER: (As Katja Sekerci, speaking German).

QURESHI: The movie is based on the true story of the killings 14 carried out by the National Socialist 15 Underground between 2001 and 2009. Film critic Patrick Wellinski is with German public radio.

PATRICK WELLINSKI: The police was investigating murders that occurred all over Germany. Migrants were killed, nine - one Greek and eight Turkish men were killed. And they didn't even have the idea that all the murders were connected, that all the murders were perpetrated by terrorists, by right-wing terrorists. And after this was uncovered, the whole society was, like, in shock - politicians, you know, citizens, the media. The media had a very crucial role because they didn't believe it either. And I think this is a shock which still lingers on.

QURESHI: Filmmaker Fatih Akin was born in Hamburg to a family of Turkish immigrants. He says those murders felt personal.

AKIN: I was very angry when all the truth came out, when we knew that the police was wrong and the media was wrong and the public was wrong by blaming the victims to be, like, involved in some criminal activities just because they have backgrounds, you know. That was the fact which bothers me more than the essential killings.

QURESHI: What bothered Diane Kruger, the film's star, was the way neo-Nazis have resurfaced in Germany since she left for Hollywood more than two decades ago.

KRUGER: What's changed since I've lived there is, like, I remember in the '90s, you know, they were skinheads, so they - you could see they visually were different. They took pride in cutting their hair a certain way and dress a certain way. And now they look like, you know, you and me. They - you don't recognize them, which makes them more dangerous. And I'm - as a German, I'm ashamed of it, that that still exists, especially in our country.

QURESHI: Kruger won the top acting 16 prize at the Cannes Film Festival for her performance as Katja. She dedicated 17 the award to the survivors 18 of terrorism. Casting a blonde, blue-eyed German actress as the face of righteous rage against neo-Nazis was important says filmmaker Fatih Akin.

AKIN: I know a lot of Germans, friends of mine, white people, who really have a problem with the Nazis we have there, you know, saying things like somebody should take a machine gun and blow them all away. I hear this from German people. So you have this radicality by white folks, you know? And I want to use that. I want to use that element. I thought it would be more complex and less cliche 19 if just a Turkish victim doing, like, blood honor revenge kind of like stuff, you know?

QURESHI: So instead, it's Kruger's character who goes on a vengeful quest to find out who murdered her family. She uncovers a network of right-wing racists stretching from Germany to Greece.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "IN THE FADE")

KRUGER: (As Katja Sekerci) I'm looking for two friends of mine, a couple. I think they might be staying here from Germany.

QURESHI: The film arrives at a time when anti-immigrant movements are flourishing around the world, but the anger Fatih Akin feels about what's going on in Germany doesn't mean he's lost hope.

AKIN: I am optimistic that things will turn better - you know, truly optimistic - but I don't know when.

QURESHI: Akin says, where there's darkness, there's light, and "In The Fade" is his contribution - a personal story about finding a way out of the darkness and out of the fade. Bilal Qureshi, NPR News.