When the wall began to crack
An exhibition and films at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre transport visitors back to momentous events in Berlin 25 years ago
Hands shake across a nest of barbed wire, then Berliners with hammers in their hands pound at the wall that separates them. Finally they pour through the jagged holes to meet friends and family they haven’t seen in decades. The human emotion behind that grand act of history a quarter century ago is fresh in the faces of “25 Years Freedom – The Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Transformation of Central Europe”.
The exhibition at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre was unveiled on Sunday by German Ambassador Rolf Sculze and is the fruit of cooperation between the embassies of Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. Citizens of those countries made up the bulk of more than 300 visitors who joined the exhibition’s launch on Sunday to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, lifting the Iron Curtain that had once divided them.
More than 50 photographs, black and white and colour, tell the story of the wall and those days in the winter of 1989 that transformed Europe and paved the way to Germany’s unification. Information boards in Thai, German and English add detail to the picture while an artistic twist on the theme comes courtesy of a painting contest.
Besides the exhibition running through November 23, “Berlin Film Nights” is unspooling in the auditorium on the fifth floor. The screenings kicked off yesterday with Wolfgang Becker’s 2003 tragi-comedy “Good Bye, Lenin!” Tonight’s show is Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s 2006 Oscar-winning drama “The Lives of Others”, about the monitoring of East Berlin citizens by agents of the Stasi, the GDR’s secret police.
Tomorrow brings “Divided Heaven”, a 1964 East German drama set just before the wall went up that deals with a couple struggling in a country already divided. Manfred is an East German scientist who becomes frustrated with the authorities and defects to the West. His lover Rita reluctantly follows him, but after failing to persuade him to return, makes her own way back to the east.
The free screenings start at 6pm and the films are in German with English subtitles.
Last up is a new documentary on a mercurial leader and hero of the struggle against repressive communist Eastern Europe. “Life According to Vaclav Havel” by Czech director Andrea Sedlackova focuses on the absurdist playwright, poet and dissident who became Czechoslovakia’s first democratically president. Sedlackova’s drama “Fair Play” will represent her country at next year’s Oscars in the foreign language category. The venue and show time have yet to be announced.
“25 Years Freedom – The Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Transformation of Central Europe” is in the lobby of the BACC and runs through November 23. The exhibition and film screenings are free. For more, visit www.bacc.or.th.
