The Promise 2
Das Versprechen deliberately avoids drawing any clear conclusions, but focuses on conveying the hardship and the drama that this particular real-life political situation inflicted upon the people of Germany. Even the final scenes, with the fall of the Wall in November 1989, refuse to give the film any closure. We do not know if this is a happy ending, even though the barrier that separated them is technically gone. The kind of separation that Sophie and Konrad endured and the amount of time that has passed have left an indelible impression, as it has on their son.
After the lovers’ separation in Prague, the actors are switched. Although it helps to have younger and older versions of the characters, switching actors part way through the film also allowed the director to bring as many actors from East and West Germany together as possible. In this way, the film sought to bring the former East and West Germany together, while exploring what kept them apart.
Many of the scenes that act as segways in the film also remind viewers of the wider influence of the seemingly arbitrary division of a nation. Von Trotta shows us family members that are close enough to look at one another through windows or from high places, but cannot cross that political boundary. We also see the cooperation and blind faith when a boy in the West throws a ball over the Wall and trust that it will be thrown back.
See also
Barton Byg, "German History and Cinematic Convention Harmonized in Margarethe von Trotta's Marianne and Juliane.” Gender and German Cinema: Feminist Interventions. Vol II: German Film History/ German History on Film. Ed. Sandra Frieden. Providence, Oxford: Berg, 1993: 259-71.
Halle, Randall. “German Film, European Film: Transnational Production Distribution and Reception.” Screen 47.2 (Summer 2006): 251-9.
Hehr, Renate. Margarethe Von Trotta: Filmmaking as Liberation. Stuttgart & London: Edition Axel Menges, 2000.
Hoffmann-Curtius, Kathrin. “A Gendering of Germany. The Couple: Image-Making for the National Unification 1989/90.” Oxford Art Journal 17.2 (1994): 78-90.
Silberman, Marc. "Post-Wall Documentaries: New Images from a New Germany." Cinema Journal 33.2 (1994): 22-41.
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