A tragicomic story of a girl without qualities, Yesterday Girl marked the emergence of New German Cinema.
The screening will be preceded by a brief introductory lecture on New German Cinema as a movement in film history delivered by film critic and researcher Mikhail Ratgauz. The film will be shown with an audio description.
Anita G., 22, flees East Germany for West Germany, where she is immediately caught stealing. She fails in her further attempts to integrate into society: the career options available to an uneducated girl are extremely limited. Wandering around the country with a suitcase, Anita works as a maid and as a record salesgirl before becoming the mistress of a ministerial advisor and trying to learn to live anew in this inhospitable but attractive country. Alexander Kluge’s feature-length debut, one of the earliest New German Cinema films, premiered at the 1966 Venice Film Festival, where it was awarded the Silver Lion.
A charming yet relentless movie by Alexander Kluge, a key figure in contemporary German film and literature, Yesterday Girl is an adaptation of his own short story, Anita G. Synthesizing the developments of the new European waves—British, French, and Czechoslovakian—Kluge breaks with previous cinematic tradition in favor of a moving camera, impressionistic black-and-white time lapse, and flexible editing. The director of cinematography and co-author of the film’s visual solution is Edgar Reitz, an eminent filmmaker in his own right and creator of the landmark TV series Heimat (1984–2013).
Like many subsequent New German Cinema pictures, Yesterday Girl is imbued with a Brechtian spirit, with its titles featuring ironic texts that comment on the narration and defamiliarize the viewer. Kluge's critical optics is aimed primarily at men patronizing and instructing Anita in every possible way: her practical mind is opposed to university professors asking whether she speaks French and knows the works of Weber. Men pass the beautiful Anita from hand to hand like a doll, until she has no choice but to go into voluntary exile. Coincidentally, the lead actress—the director's sister, Alexandra Kluge (1937–2017), who won a number of prestigious awards for Yesterday Girl—abandoned acting to pursue a career as a doctor.
The film will be screened in German with Russian subtitles and an audio description for blind and visually impaired visitors.
The audio description was prepared by Garage Inclusive Programs department and the Garage Screen team.
Dir. Alexander Kluge
Germany, 1966. 88 min. 18+