Drawing a Line

I attended a screening of Drawing a Line, a film about the divisions left in Germany after reunification. I felt like I learned a lot about this period in German history and had an opportunity reflect on human nature.

A young man was recruited by the Stasi to inform on his friends in the punk underground. Being a cocky young man, and needing money, he agreed. He thought he'd be able to just tell them what he wanted them to know. But when he informs on some youth that were involved in spray-painting graffiti, it ends up with his brother (who was also involved, but not named) getting swept up and imprisoned.

He continued to provide information to the Stasi until he refused military service and became a conscientious objector -- for which he was imprisoned. He refused to be an informant in prison. Then, later, he left the GDR and was in West Berlin with several of his friends from the punk community that he had informed on -- it wasn't clear whether he continued providing information after he left prison or after he left East Germany.

In West Berlin, it was his idea to conduct an action to paint a white line along the entire length of the Berlin Wall. A variety of viewpoints are expressed in the movie about what exactly the line represented: crossing something out or drawing a line under the events that happened in this young man's life.

Twenty years after the Wall came down, they released the Stasi files and someone put together who the informant was. He had never told them or confessed to his role in the events. The tension in the relationship between the two brothers was the central feature of the movie.

The movie ends with a scene of the Palestinian Separation Wall where someone had painted a blue line all along the wall and questioning who made it, what their motives were, and what it meant.

Having just watched Douglas Rushkoff's talk about throwing rocks at the Google bus, I was reminded very much of Ishmael. We are captives of a system that constrains our range of options. It was easy for me to imagine, as a young man, believing I could control the situation and then finding that I was in over my head. Another gripping part of the movie was of a man who'd been a guard on the wall. He was unapologetic — proud even — of the role he'd played: he'd accepted the duty, been good at it, and taken pride in his work.

Near the end, the film-maker tried to bring the two brothers to reconciliation. It's emblematic, I think, of the divisions that still exist in Germany after reunification. How do you move past this pain point without letting go of the past, yet recognizing a mistake that can never be balanced or unmade? It was a poignant movie. Well worth watching.