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In Heaven, Underground: The Jewish Cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee
Britta Wauer (Germany, Special Presentations)
Sunday, May 1, 7:00 p.m.
Isabel Bader Theatre (93 Charles Street West)
Tuesday, May 3, 3:45 p.m.
Isabel Bader Theatre (93 Charles Street West)
Sunday, May 8, 7:30 p.m.
TIFF Bell Lightbox (350 King Street West)
It’s a shame when the subject matter of a documentary is compelling but the film itself can’t do it justice. In Heaven, Underground: The Jewish Cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee unfortunately falls into that category. The long history of the Berline-Weißensee cemetery (the largest Jewish cemetery in Western Europe and one of the few with its archive fully intact) overwhelms the film about it. Britta Wauer’s documentary tries to fit in a huge range of subject matter: life in the nineteenth century, the First World War, the Holocaust, the Cold War, and the contemporary relationship between Germany and Jews, as well as with the Jewish Diaspora. (See, even the summary was long-winded.)
Each time period (spanning from the 1850s to today) is boiled down to a personal story of someone whose life has been touched by the cemetery. From grave diggers to visiting Americans with family members buried there to the family who currently resides in the cemetery’s estate house, it’s an eclectic cast of characters. Woven in with these stories are interviews with the head rabbi at the cemetery, who humorously philosophizes about life and love and it all while explaining Jewish customs for the less informed goyim in the house. With all these elements, In Heaven, Underground feels as though it’s gasping to catch its breath. The film also errs on the side of the melodramatic. Though the documentary is about a cemetery, it’s very much a celebration of life. But rather than let the camera and stories themselves speak to this the near continuous soundtrack is somewhat heavy-handed.
Though charming, In Heaven, Underground doesn’t dig deep enough into any of the time periods it explores. As a German film reflecting on German-Jewish history in the 21st century it’s conceptually interesting, but the documentary as a whole comes off feeling light.