Sometimes context is everything. The 1973 East German film The Legend of Paul and Paula would be, for most viewers in 2008, just an entertaining romantic comedy/drama. But this film was made in an East Germany still under the grip of Communism, which means much of the content is fraught with a double meaning.

The story is about the secret love affair between Paula, a working-class single mother of two who has no luck with men, and Paul, a civil servant in a bad marriage. In a funny beginning, our two protagonists meet their unlucky partners during the same night at a carnival. In Paula’s case, she gets together with a carny, and gets pregnant - she comes home right after the birth of the baby to discover the carny messing around with another woman, and so she kicks him out. In Paul’s case, after his marriage, he goes off for three years of compulsory military service, and comes home to find his wife in bed with another man. In this case, this couple doesn’t break up, possibly because he wants to be a good citizen and not invite scandal. But Paul will sneak around...

Paul and Paula eventually meet up at a dance, and very quickly strike up an affair in that typically inexplicable way which often happens at the movies. What they have together in private is something they can’t have in the public, real world - while their affair is more about sex, about the need to be truly close to someone, it’s far more pure than the alternatives which both of them have experienced.

But of course the affair is not totally private. Paul’s wife soon figures out what is going on. And the key to why this is a political movie is how class seems to be the big issue here - it’s not so much the fact Paul had an affair which offends his wife and others, but the fact he’s having one with a lowly, working class single mother.

To continue with the political theme, Paul’s inability to leave his wife for Paula, due to “obligations”, take on an extra layer. There have been many movies where husbands have affairs with women they claim to love, while never breaking off the supposedly-unhappy marriage due to not wanting to break up the family, etc, etc. But any mention of “obligation” and “duty” in a Communist-era film ought to set off alarm bells. A totalitarian state is all about submitting to the will of the state, and yet here is this respectable member of society, one who ought to be one of the many faces of the noble spirit of the Communist regime, shirking his marital duties with a working-class girl just so he can be *happy*. And the working-class woman ought to know her place, too - isn’t there nobility in hard work and struggle - and yet she wants to be *happy* as well.

Paul isn’t quite able to shake off the chains of conformity, at least not right away. So of course Paula has had enough of him, and is willing to marry a much older man just for the sake of her children. Paul’s shock at her plans cause him to act in some very bizarre and comical ways in the hopes of gaining her forgiveness and regaining her love.

The Legend of Paul and Paula was apparently made in a somewhat more freeing time in East Germany. One has to remember that a film such as this would have had to have been approved by government officials. According to information from First Run Features, this film was very popular at the time, and for good reason. The film presents a message of love and freedom as it struggles against rigid conformity, and we want to root for the lovers. The film is very much of its time, as it includes some sexy scenes that would have been rare a few years earlier, and some odd and surreal fantasy sequences which give it that late-1960s/early 1970’s funky psychedelic look.

But without spoiling anything, I submit the reason this film was able to pass muster with the government censors is due to what happens in the ending. I think you’ll know what I mean when you see it. Very few of the DEFA films I’ve seen were able to be overly critical of either the values or the bureaucracy which shaped the principals of the Communist party, and get away with it. Nearly 10 years previously, The Rabbit is Me, a more pointed critique of East German values, played for only a very brief time before it was suppressed up until German reunification. A more acceptable vision would be the teen musical Hot Summer (1968), a propaganda vehicle where the idea of the collective is of utmost importance, right up to how the musical and dance sequences are choreographed.

The Legend of Paul and Paula is a pleasant and entertaining comedy/drama that will be more than understandable even without the historical context. But that context definitely makes the film a bit more interesting.


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS