This isn’t a game

No, this isn’t about Dance Dance Revolution. Not even close. Amie Siegel’s “DDR/DDR” is an honest film that takes a look at the German Democratic Republic’s demise and the clandestine surveillance it left behind. 

The film is not your average informative documentary. The raw interviews appear impromptu and hardly edited. This can make for a bit of a bumpy ride, but Siegel smoothes things out with reoccurring artistic—and seemingly meaningless—vignettes, which can be taken as beautiful intermissions that juxtapose an impedance with the educational aim of the film.

This half documentary-half artistic voyage follows the Stasi, East Germany’s secret service of 91,000 full-time staff and hundreds of others working as informants. The film concentrates on both the psychological turmoil created by the Stasi, which still affects the lives of many former DDR citizens today, and the Stasi’s impacts on the history of cinema.

The Berlin Wall served as a divide for two different cultures, which housed both proud and speculative citizens. Many of those interviewed lived happily in the East. Others in the West could not believe the material inadequacy on the other side of the wall. The two preliminary psychoanalysts Siegel interviews explain that there was no psychoanalytic therapy in the East side for quite some time. It was said to degrade a person. Despite this, eventually came the emergence of “Dynamically Intended Group Therapy” centered on grouping the people “collectively.”

Siegel sifts through volumes of DDR observational footage and audio, narrating its original intentions. Many Stasi tasks involved the unauthorized “corroding” of particular individuals through psychological harassment tactics taught by the Stasi University, using psychology as a tool of oppression and coercion.

The movie takes many unexpected twists and turns, including a 20-minute concentration on a particular counterculture of former DDR citizens. A replicate of Native American culture, its citizens live in teepees, hunt for food and wear loincloths. The ideals that East Germany supposedly stood for, the communal existence in which togetherness triumphed over wealth and status, did not seem to coincide with the government. This led some former citizens of the DDR to speculate its corruption and stray. Siegel claims that a particular influence on this new manner of living came from the films in the ‘80s, which portrayed Native Americans as the ultimate brave underdogs up against the imperialist whites.

There were more cinematic influences linked to the DDR. The DDR’s use of film as an oppressive power tactic, Siegel asserts, birthed violent cinematic terminology like “Ready, aim, fire,” and “rapid action.” Interestingly, the camera lenses used today are manufactured by the same company that created DDR’s surveillance equipment.

“DDR/DDR” is a vivacious mixture of raw, honest interviews, a plethora of historical footage and some artsy pointless vignettes of a drunken man for flavor. The only thing it could have really done without is the numerous direct shots of Siegel herself, sprawled out on a sofa in some sort of apish attempt to beguile viewers. Or those where she’s on a Persian rug, or those where it’s just a head shot. The director’s love for the camera aside, the movie makes no mistake in presenting all angles on the controversial rule of the DDR. ?