The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979)

The Oberhausen Manifesto came about to “acknowledge film as an art form similar to other arts” (Hake 144). The new Young German filmmakers wanted to come back to the roots of their national cinema, “to create an art cinema with social relevance” (144). The new filmmakers asked the government to help fund these new directives and to help them be created, rather than the simple documentary films that were being made.

The government then created a series of infrastructures that helped new talent produce socially relevant films. The themes that occurred in the films were present in any post-war revaluation of a national self. These films wanted to break with the formalities of the past. The new young filmmakers want to make art for art’s sake but also be respondent to the public social consciousness of the time. It may have been these types of ideals that would lead to reunification.

In the movie The Marriage of Maria Braun, the themes reflect the situation in the government and the social consciousness of the time. The leading character thinks her spouse has died in the military. While she tries to move on, and is even rather bold and smart about it, she finds that the past catches up with her. It is apparently an allegory. With all the construction in the movie, she is trying to build a new life, just like Germany was. Even as she finds a new love, she thinks that she cannot marry because she is already married to that man of her past. When he resurfaces, she finds that she cannot bury her past.