John Foster / 24 Feb 2023
The Biggest Failure Ever
R. T. Howard’s Spying on the Reich
From the vantage point of the early 21st century, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the interwar period was a preamble to catastrophe.(...)
Germany
Charlie Bertsch / 16 Feb 2023
Ukraine in Hindsight
Edward Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front
All Quiet on the Western Front, Edward Berger’s astoundingly brutal adaptation of Eric Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel about World War I – the favourite to win this year’s Best International Film Oscar – is timely to a degree that would have been hard to imagine when the project began.(...)
Charlie Bertsch / 18 Jan 2023
Sex Against Fascism
Dušan Makavejev’s Innocence Unprotected
Serbian director Dušan Makavejev’s 1968 film Innocence Unprotected manages both to explore the legacy of wartime trauma seriously and to make fun of itself in the process. (...)
John Foster / 13 Jan 2023
The Greens Are Dead
Lützerath and German Environmentalism
Be careful what you wish for. It may be a cliché, but it's one the Greens are learning all over again.(...)
Charlie Bertsch / 21 Dec 2022
Sonic Reporting
Everywhere But There, by Joel Schalit
Battleground editor Joel Schalit’s new album Everywhere But There forcefully demonstrates the need for a new kind of political reporting, one which presents the world as it actually is instead of distorting it in the pursuit of profit.(...)
Charlie Bertsch / 30 Nov 2022
The Abstract City
Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis, by Walter Ruttmann
Walter Ruttmann’s 1927 film Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis is strangely suited for these times, when traditional moviegoing is in perilous decline, providing a way to disentangle the art of cinema from that mode of consumption.(...)
John Foster / 25 Nov 2022
Think Different
Culture from the Slums, by Jeff Hayton
Based on the flurry of academic titles about it over the last decade, punk has become as common to college curriculums as it is to the Top 40. Why this took so long is baffling.(...)
John Foster / 04 Nov 2022
Alienated by Technology
Non-things: Upheaval in the Lifeworld, by Byung Chul-Han
When talk of the “information age” first began in the 1960s, it implied optimism. Information is knowledge, of which more is better than less, generally speaking.(...)
Charlie Bertsch / 05 Oct 2022
Eternal Berlin
Deutsch Funk Revolte, by ÖPNV
ÖPNV’s debut album Deutsch Funk Revolte is the sort of record that can make you sense the sun even when it is blocked by the relentless grey of winter, which happens most days in their Berlin home. (...)
Charlie Bertsch / 28 Sep 2022
The Work of Remembrance
Germany, Year Zero, Today
It’s hard to watch Roberto Rossellini’s 1948 film Germany, Year Zero to its conclusion. The mood is relentlessly bleak and the landscape bleaker still.(...)