Notes on... Not Reconciled (1965)

'Not Reconciled,' Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet's first feature film (Straub is credited as director, Huillet as writer and actor), is something of an early-career anomaly. While it establishes the pair as adapters of thematically weighty, highbrow works, and hints at the abstruse dialogue and Brechtian disruptions they would later be known for, the feel of the film is uncharacteristically light and animated. In a way, it was the pair's "New Wave" film, a riff on the aesthetically revolutionary motifs and techniques of fellow countrymen like Godard and Truffaut. Appropriated by Straub-Huillet, the elliptical editing and subjective realism of early 60's French film achieved a far different impact, one that would continue to reverberate well after they moved on to their classical style.

Based on a 1959 novel by Heinrich Böll, 'Not Reconciled' tells the fragmented tale of the Faehmel family, focusing on three generations and how they took part in and were effected by the events of the Second World War. Heinrich Faehmel, accomplished pre-war architect is the father of Robert and grandfather of Joseph, both trained in architecture as well. Through flashbacks, we see how Robert falls in with a group of war-dissenters, is exiled from Germany, then conscripted into the Nazi ranks and tasked with demolishing buildings, including an abbey designed by his father. On Heinrich's 80th birthday, there's a reconciliation, an unexpected act of violence perpetrated by the family matriarch, and a glimmer of hope in the form of Joseph, who it seems will elude the guilt and trauma of the Third Reich. The intricate, intergenerational narrative moves freely and quickly between past and present, creating a disorienting, dreamlike tone that is no accident. Just as Arthur Penn adapted dynamic New Wave editing and sequencing to bring a sense of existentialist paranoia to 'Mickey One' the same year, Straub-Huillet use these methods to engender a feeling of moral confusion and inconsequence. Like a nightmare shared by an entire nation, the ethical morass of World War 2 and the ensuing ambivalence is a dream state that the fated characters have fallen into.

A few seconds into the film, while shooting billiards, Robert essentially asks the audience "what would you like to know?" As the camera pans down to the spiraling balls, we're zipped to a sports field where young boys are playing, one of them a school-aged Robert whose story we are about to witness. It's straightforward enough in this instance, but this sort of leap through time without warning or elucidation happens throughout 'Not Reconciled.' Related to, but practically distinct from the jump-cut (which skipped the formalities, so to speak, by cutting out old-fashioned transitions), these warp-cuts accomplish quite a bit more. They help to create a discombobulated feel that mirrors the moral disarray of the characters. As they are mostly jumps in time, they also obscure the lines between past and present, highlighting the interconnectedness of generations and allowing for the reexamination and re-contextualization of past transgressions. The disjointed narrative itself is a hallmark of the New Wave, specifically the works of Alain Resnais. Straub-Huillet also populate their film with inexpressive actors, not to capture some truthful essence or prosaic charm as with Godard's non-actors, but to characterize the ambiguous nature of the Faehmel family, and by extension, post-war Germany.

Earlier this year, the Museum of Modern Art (who screened this film as part of their complete Straub-Huillet retrospective) hosted an enlightening series called Germany 66 that focused on the watershed year in which the New German Cinema took form. What surprises me most about Straub and Huilliet's debut is not its stylishness or lively pacing when compared to their later works, but how neatly it would have fit into the slate at MoMA beside first features from Volker Schlöndorff and Alexander Kluge. Right alongside the new class of native filmmakers (and ahead of quite a few of them), the French duo diagnosed the national ills of their adopted country, and the results are revelatory. Like the finest entries in the Young German Film, they grappled with the demons of the Nazi horror, incorporated the richness of German literature, and helped mend the seemingly irreparable rift in the nation's cinematic lineage. That Straub-Huillet found their way to the vanguard of this movement should not come as a surprise. The itinerant filmmakers came to these insights as they always did, through their profound understanding of the arts, and what those arts communicate about their creators.