Die Schlüssel (1974)

Ric, a worker at a light-bulb factory, and Klaus, an engineering student, are a young East German couple who want to take a summer holiday in the Polish city of Kraków in 1972, the year East Germans were allowed, for the first time since the Second World War, to travel to Czechoslovakia and the Polish People’s Republic without visas. In a long opening sequence, the film watches Ric change her clothes several times. In the end, she chooses white. A record player is playing the aria “Habanera” from Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen. At the airport, a major topic of discussion is whether they will get separate rooms or a room together at the hotel, since they are not married. Neither of them seems to notice that flights to Zurich and Paris are being called, destinations they, as GDR citizens, will never see. During a stopover in Warsaw, they meet the Polish historian Kendzierski and his wife, who are both headed to Paris. They give Ric and Klaus the keys to their apartment in Kraków. When they arrive, a taxi driver asks if they are from Germany. Ric replies that they are from Berlin, from the GDR. The taxi driver offers to exchange money for them. Ric and Klaus wander curiously through Kraków’s medieval city center, the former capital of Poland. In a cathedral, they join a German-language tour that evokes Poland’s ancient cultural history. Ric notices a woman standing in the shadow of a column, crying, but does not dare approach her. In a restaurant, intimidated by the unfamiliar surroundings, Klaus criticizes Ric, telling her not to stuff the cake into herself like that. As they watch Polish men show women a particular courtesy by kissing their hands, Ric sees a tattooed number on a woman’s arm but says nothing. They go to a concert where the singer of a Polish rock band, Czesław Niemen, seems to be delivering something very meaningful through his gesturally and musically intense performance, though they cannot understand it. While Klaus listens naively, Ric looks around and observes audience members of all ages, including very old people, all moved by the musicians’ performance. A Catholic procession takes place in the street, also drawing people of all ages, including children. A woman with bad teeth explains that the procession is meant to commemorate a historical event. The king of Kraków once had a bishop who opposed him murdered. The seriousness and empathy of all those taking part are written on their faces, while the two East Germans remain rather naïve and bewildered. They seem lost among these people, whom the great theme of their history appears to unite as an identity despite their differences. As they continue through the city, Klaus asks in front of a ruin, whose construction fence bears a poster with Lenin’s face, what they are even looking for here; surely they cannot just wander around and eat cake. Back at the apartment, they seem isolated from one another. They do not talk about what they have experienced. Klaus does not respond to Ric’s sexual overture. Ric rummages through the Kendzierskis’ personal belongings and finds a photograph of an older woman. Examining it more closely with a magnifying glass, she discovers a tattooed prisoner number on this woman’s arm, too. Only when Ric finds a record among their hosts’ albums with the same music she listened to before leaving, and puts it on, does the young couple’s vague helplessness lift. They grow a little closer again in the shower. Relatives and neighbors, wondering who is staying in the apartment of the historian couple who are away, including a Polish soldier, press into the apartment. Klaus and Ric manage, with difficulty, to explain that they are there lawfully. A police officer records their details on a registration form and instructs them to sign a document they cannot read. Through this incident, they meet several young Poles who want to show them more of the country. With the soldier, they drive a Volkswagen Beetle to Nowa Huta and the Lenin Steelworks. On the way, they watch the landscape and several riders. During the drive in the convertible, wearing the soldier’s cap, Klaus seems happy and carefree for the first time. At the steelworks, they watch Polish workers in asbestos suits carrying out a steel pour at blast furnaces in a huge hall, among piles of ash. Someone explains that the furnaces must never go out and that workers have to stand at them around the clock in three shifts. As this is being explained, Ric suddenly starts crying hard and sobs, “It’s all so hard.” What she means by this is left open. An older worker, who speaks a little German and has metal front teeth, comes over to the visitors to tell them about her hard work. She says it is important to come to terms with things. Back in Kraków, they throw themselves into the city’s life again. In keeping with tradition, the mayor has just handed control of Kraków to the young people for a few days. They try to learn Polish so they can buy a tin of Nivea cream. Unlike Klaus, who prefers a methodical approach using a grammar dictionary, Ric simply memorizes phrases. Klaus disparagingly calls this the “Schliemann method.” Nevertheless, Ric succeeds in buying the cream, unlike Klaus. When Ric leaves the shop wearing enormous purple sunglasses and approaches Klaus, the two East Germans start teasing each other for the first time. Ric tells Klaus to move away and then come back to her as a Polish man would. Klaus does so, greets her in Polish, and kisses her hand. They drive with the soldier through a crowd of young people celebrating. Some of them wear historical costumes and masks. It appears to be an international festival. The number 72 appears several times on a wall. A former French politician is interviewed and says that, as a young man, he was arrested by the German Gestapo but managed to escape. Asked about the Vietnam War, he says he wishes peace to all Vietnamese people and is glad France no longer has anything to do with the war. A group of British athletes is also interviewed by reporters. Amid the babble of voices, the word Auschwitz is heard several times. An image of Che Guevara is shown among the celebrating young people. The new impressions lead Ric to see her relationship with Klaus in a new light. She senses how differently he reacts to everything and feels hurt. She rides a tram all the way to the depot at closing time and, in a long monologue on the dark tram, talks about her inability to develop further in the way Klaus expects. She realizes that she will never be his intellectual equal. He will make his way in life, while she will always remain a worker who wants only a happy family life with a husband and children, a wish she openly acknowledges. An older Polish tram driver sits beside her and speaks to her. After some difficulty understanding one another, he tells her in broken German that she must rest and go to sleep. Somewhat reluctantly, the old man confirms that he had to learn German during the war. The next day, while showering, Ric takes back everything she said to herself, though Klaus is sitting in the kitchen and cannot hear her. When Ric comes out of the shower, she discovers that Klaus is no longer there and thinks he has left her. In a panic, she runs out into the street to look for him and is hit by a tram. Klaus, who had only gone to a neighbor to get a cigarette, now finds the apartment empty. He goes looking for Ric and finds her dead beneath the tram. Her death comes as a shock to Klaus. The police ask him whether Ric had been ill. Strangely, Klaus takes some time before denying it. The officer explains that they may need to establish whether there was any culpability, so Ric must be autopsied. As he meets people who offer their condolences and handles the arrangements with the Polish authorities to transport her body, with help from the soldier’s girlfriend and a helpless representative of the GDR embassy, he seems apathetic. Ric’s body is loaded into a wooden freight wagon bound for the GDR. The wagon recalls those used by the Germans during the war to transport their victims to Auschwitz, and later to deport Germans from the territories that had by then become part of Poland. A railway worker bolts and seals the sliding door. Then he draws a large white cross on the wagon in chalk. Klaus stands on a bridge and cries. A Polish woman with a child by the hand tries to comfort him with the German proverb, “Time heals all wounds.” Klaus goes to the Kendzierskis’ apartment, having bought them a bottle of liquor, and begins writing a letter of thanks.