Where We Were and Where We're Going | People on Sunday
And then on Monday, it is back to work, back to the everyday, back to the daily grind. Four million wait for it. The next Sunday.
People on Sunday follows four young people as they take an excursion on an average Sunday in Berlin. There’s Erwin the taxi driver, Brigitte the record seller, Wolfgang the wine seller and Christl who is an extra in films. And these were actual people, they weren’t actors (except for, ya know, Christl the actor), the film states in the beginning that they’ve all returned to their normal jobs by the time of the film’s release. That, along with a lot of the observational, documentary-style camera work makes this film really feel like we’re getting a snapshot of a moment in time. That time being Berlin in 1929.
I was a junior in high school on September 11th, 2001 and there’s a very clear moment where I start to remember that day. Ms. Taafe’s History class, an announcement came on telling people that if they have family that works in the World Trade Center they can come down and call the office. My dad did, spoiler he’s still alive, I went down to the office and watched the first tower fall. Called home, my mother was bawling so she put my neighbor on the phone and she told me, they talked to my dad, he’s fine, he’s on his way home. Cool. Great. School gets let out early, I get home, find out that was a lie, they had no idea where my dad was, but now they do and he actually will get home soon. He got home and then took me to the FYE over on Hooper Avenue to buy the original cast recording of tick…tick…BOOM, which had come out that day. Yes, I was a nerd and my dad is awesome for taking me to buy a CD hours after surviving nine eleven.
People on Sunday is a notable film in the history of cinema because all the men who worked on it, behind the scenes, went on to prolific careers in Hollywood; Billy Wilder probably being the most well known. He fled Germany four years after the premiere in 1933.
Robert Siodmak would go on to direct many more films, getting a Best Director Academy Award nomination for The Killers in 1946. In 1933 he was attacked by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels in the press over the content of his film The Burning Secret.
Edgar G. Ulmer would go on to direct the great Karloff/Lugosi horror film The Black Cat. Curt Siodmak would go on to write The Wolf Man! And Fred Zinneman would go on to win four Academy Awards and direct one of my all time favorite Westerns, High Noon.
I have no idea what I did before that moment on September 11th, 2001. I don’t remember what I had for breakfast or even what classes I had before that, but everything after that announcement came over the loudspeaker is very vivid in my memory. If I could look back at those moments now, would my shower that morning say something? The washing away of innocence? Would each bite of my PopTart be that much more meaningful? I don’t know, but watching People on Sunday and seeing these four young people flirt and fight and have fun, seeing people casually going about their day in Berlin; all the while, knowing what is about to happen to Germany over the next several years. It feels poignant. It feels ominous in a way the filmmakers could have never intended.
Because it feels so contemporary in its aesthetic and because of the talents who made it, I think the film would still be looked at as an “important film,” but the context in which the film sits in history really does make it more than just an experiment of early filmmaking. It just feels like it beautifully captures a moment of happiness before tragedy.
I’m not sure I have a point here, but this movie made me reflect. It made me sad. It made me wistful. It made me think about where we were before 2001 and where we’re at after 2001. It made me think about where we’re at now and where we’ll be after now. If I was still a really edgy cool young guy, it would make me think, every moment is a moment before tragedy. Because I was so edgy and cool. But I’m a rapidly aging father of two and it really just made me want to stop thinking so much about where we were and where we will be and do my best to focus more and be happy with where I’m at, what I’m doing.
And then on Monday, it is back to work, back to the everyday, back to the daily grind. Four million wait for it. The next Sunday.
