Das Haus 1984 (1984)

The film opens with a view across the almost deserted Alexanderplatz, toward the Fountain of Friendship between Peoples and the Berolinahaus behind it. A view of a surveillance camera installed on the roof shows that Alex is always under observation. In the background, the sound of an S-Bahn pulling out of Berlin Alexanderplatz station can be heard. Days later, on May 6, 1984, it is local election day in the GDR. One of Berlin’s many polling stations is in the Berolinahaus, the seat of the Council of Berlin-Mitte borough. The World Time Clock shows that it is shortly before 8:00 a.m. when a Volga arrives in the pouring rain with the election materials. After the election and the count, the materials are collected by several cars. On Whit Monday, Alexanderplatz is once again full of people, and is also a meeting place for foreigners allowed to enter from West Berlin, who come here looking to meet girls from East Berlin. Then ordinary working days resume, usually beginning in the Berolinahaus with a ride in one of the paternoster lifts. The first department visited by the camera is responsible for housing policy. The staff member in charge is explaining to a woman seeking a suitable home for an older person that she cannot help her, since she receives at most 120 apartments in total each year to allocate among about 3,000 applicants. The same applies to her colleague. Still, the caseworker promises to keep the matter in mind. The next applicant lives in a four-room apartment with four people and therefore cannot be included in the allocation plan for the next few years. A student asks whether she might be able to get an apartment that was rejected and returned, but is told that there is no such thing, since all apartments are allocated. A supervisor comes by and advises another student, who has five more years of study ahead of her, to marry a rich professor and then she would be rid of her housing problem. His colleague adds that this was only a joke. Asked later, the staff member explains that she handled 62 cases the previous day and that she normally copes well with these public consultation days. The next visit is to the Social Affairs Department. Here, a young woman asks for financial assistance with her child’s school enrollment. Her request is denied because she has already received several forms of assistance, her child’s enrollment has been known about for a long time, and her income is above the minimum threshold for social welfare. The young woman insists that she does not want these problems; they simply come her way. The staff member cannot decide on her own whether the matter could be settled with a loan, so she asks the applicant to come back again. The next visitor, an older woman, does not get everything she wanted, but does receive a subsidy of 150 East German marks toward the cost of moving house. Now it is the Department of Internal Affairs’ turn. A staff member is currently at a prison asking whether a citizen was released that morning as scheduled. The answer is yes, and he had also signed a statement saying that he would report to the borough council that same morning. The staff member hopes he will still come in. Now a young woman takes a seat at her colleague’s desk; the colleague has been called in for a consultation. The young woman has been staying with her mother for several months without registering with the police or being entered in the household register, because she can no longer get into her own apartment. The problem is that her mother’s apartment is in the border zone, which can only be entered with a permit. Other problems come up as well: she has not been going to work for several months. Here, too, she tries to talk her way out of it with implausible arguments. She says she is single and has a son who is currently staying at a youth reformatory. She could do work that is not too strenuous, such as in a large kitchen or as a doorkeeper. She flatly denies drinking alcohol. She also says she does not bring men upstairs, except for her boyfriend from Stuttgart—but that is not forbidden. However, she would only follow him to West Germany if they were married and she had paid off her debts. In the Youth Welfare Department, 13-year-old Marko sits with his mother and a youth welfare officer. He is there because he is accused of several petty thefts. During the conversation, he shows that he understands the seriousness of the matter and is self-critical. He talks about his twin sister, who is in the same class as he is and gets better grades because in the past he often could not be bothered to make more of an effort. By his own account, he could improve his school performance if he wanted to. He is also inconsistent in following through on his ideas and hobbies. After this conversation, the youth welfare officer speaks with Marko’s mother alone and makes clear to her that his offenses are actually very minor, but that the criminal police had asked them to deal with the matter. The mother complains that she had asked the responsible ABV—the local volunteer police officer—for help with the thefts, but he had spread her problems throughout the entire neighborhood, so the family now has a reputation as a family of thieves. At the same time, she also sees some of the blame as lying with her own parenting, since she generally dislikes boys and therefore always favored Marko’s sister. The film ends with the wedding of a young couple in the Berolinahaus. No other guests are present, so the couple look rather lost in the room; the only thing on the wall is a somewhat oversized portrait of Erich Honecker. In her address, the registrar emphasizes the special protection afforded to marriage in the GDR. But it is also important for the couple themselves to contribute to their happiness, because they are not merely spouses under the law, but also companions in life and friends. The wedding day is September 1, 1984, which, as the registrar points out, is World Peace Day, and she sees this as a special call for them to take part in the cause as a young couple. She also urges them to think back to the happy times they have shared. But she points out that the relationship between partners will change over the years. They should therefore strive, guided by the principles of socialist morality and ethics, to ensure that all their activities are also in keeping with the duties and interests of society.