Synopsis
Kuhle Wampe takes place in early-1930s Berlin. At the beginning of the film, an unemployed young man, brother of the protagonist Anni, throws himself from a window out of the despair that he had spent another day unsuccessfully seeking work. Shortly thereafter his family is evicted from their apartment. They move into a garden colony of sorts, with the name “Kuhle Wampe.”
Anni, the family’s daughter and the only family member who still has a job, becomes pregnant and engaged to her boyfriend, Fritz, who that very evening describes that their marriage was demanded of him because of her pregnancy. Anni leaves Fritz and moves to her friend Gerda’s apartment. She later takes place in a worker’s sporting event where she meets Fritz again, who has recently lost his work, and they reunite.
The climax of the film depicts their return home by train (a scene that Brecht wrote personally). Anni and Fritz as well as a handful of workers argue with middle-class and wealthy men and women over the Situation of the worldwide financial crisis. One of the workers notes that the well-off will not change the world in any case, to which one of the wealthy asks quizzically, “Who else, then, can change the world?” Gerda replies, “Those who don’t like it.”
The film ends with the singing of the Solidarity Song, with lyrics by Brecht and music from Hanns Eisler.
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