THE RED ELVIS

This documentary by Leopold Grün tells the story of Dean Reed, an American entertainer who made it big in South America and behind the Iron Curtain. He was a cowboy, a rebel, a freedom fighter and a heartthrob at the same time, but eventually comitted suicide in a Berlin lake.

"The Red Elvis" will premiere at the Berlinale, the 57th Berlin International Film Festival (8-18 feb). Check out the trailer below.

Dean Reed- The Red Elvis

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Supermarket etiquette

It was a bit busy in my local supermarket Rewe at the Kulturbrauerei. When I approached the cash register, there were four or five people in front of me. At the end of the line stood a shopping basket on the floor, its owner nowhere to be seen. Must have dashed off to get some last minute things. Can happen, right? I just positioned myself next in line. When she returned, the girl whose basket was in front of me appeared to fetch it to leave to do some more shopping. Great, I thought, one less in front of me. But then she stepped behind me, apparently offering me her place! To a Dutch person like me, that made no sense at all. If your basket's in line, that's your spot, except if you just leave an empty one and then start shopping.

I noticed before that Germans under no circumstances want to appear rude or uncivilised, but this to me seemed like a step too far. There's all kinds of humble, but this was the awkward kind. So in my best Deutsch, I offered her her place back and stated that I found it absolutley no problem that she wasn't there but here basket was. Funny, these cultural differences. In Holland, it would have been the other way around; people would have made a great fuss if you took their place while they had run off for something they'd forgotten.

The border

"And time and again the border. A mysterious magnetic power radiates out of it. An attraction, irrespective of political or moral interpretation. Politically I understood the building of the wall, morally I was incensed - both actually overlook what it means today: a form of social contradiction condensed into stone. Of course the thing is perverse, but it shows its malady openly and does not hide it away awkwardly. The loss of this construction would impoverish life here. And even if it were only the anger that was lost.

"And it is not just the anger. The wall as a motor that permanently generates tension. It challenges, coerces much of what is everyday routine into shedding its superficiality, so as to get to the core - even if it's hard to swallow.

"This knife of history, ruthlessly cutting a place in two, which then turned into more than the halves of the previously existing city. At the time of separation both parts were falling apart, so that the wall joined them together.

"A zipper. The cement holding the whole of Berlin together. Its name a metaphor for something that holds a brittle hope. Fencing off is only viewed as necessary when things threaten to intermingle."

Lutz Rathenow in 'Ost-Berlin - Life before the Wall fell', first published by Jaron Verlag in 1987.