Der fallende Stern (1950)

The Falling Star—that is, Halley’s Comet—became a traumatic event for the little girl Elisabeth Hollreiser in 1910. She firmly believes there must be a causal connection between the celestial event, the breakdown of her family, and all the misfortune that followed in her life. Shortly after the Second World War, she works as a social worker in a camp for displaced people from the eastern territories. Day after day, the adult Elisabeth Hollreiser is confronted there with the social and human misery of the homeless and uprooted, but it leaves her largely unmoved. Elisabeth shows no compassion even for the emotional distress of Alma, a young refugee woman. Over time, her depression deepens, as does her bitterness about what she sees as her own botched life. One day, two strange male figures arrive and turn her existence upside down from then on. They are called Lucius and Lemura and supposedly work as a locomotive driver and a canteen operator. In truth, however, they embody good and evil, the angel and the devil, and now confront Elisabeth with herself. They complement each other like yin and yang, and manage to make Elisabeth finally face the traumatic fears of her childhood. Lucifer Lemura symbolizes the past, the terrible memory that has held Elisabeth in its grip for four decades and, with the appearance of Halley’s Comet, created an ever-present threat that represents nothing more than a pent-up fear of life. Lucius, by contrast, finally knows how to break through these fears, and the Bible and a firm Christian faith in God help him do so. Lucius at least succeeds at first in loosening Elisabeth Hollreiser’s inner hardness: at the decisive moment, the social worker saves Alma from a planned suicide. The film leaves open whether Elisabeth’s transformation away from depression and toward life will actually succeed; in any case, no easy solution is in sight.