ULRICH WEIß’S PHANTASMAGORICAL FILM Miraculi cannot be fully appreciated without some understanding of its production history. In her article “Der See, der über Nacht verschwindet” (November 19, 1992), Ursula Heyne contextualizes the film within its conceptual history and offers a poetic account of its prominent motifs. Though one would expect a review published in Neues Deutschland, the official paper of the SED, to be innately political, Dieter Strunz’s article (November 19, 1992), published in the (West) German Berliner Morgenpost, is considerably more ideological than Heyne’s. In his almost caustic critique, Strunz dismisses the film as little more than the product of Weiß’s deep-seated personal frustration and disenchantment with the DEFA authorities. While Heyne explores the film’s dense philosophical content and the opportunities it presents for introspection, Strunz’s article reflects the shifting artistic paradigms and the deep sociocultural divisions of the Wende.

Ursula Heyne

The Lake That Disappears Overnight

First published as “Der See, der über Nacht verschwindet” in Neues

Deutschland (November 19, 1992).

Translated by Jordan Allen.

A young man with a round, childlike face wanders through the film, with eyes full of pain, and with an intense sadness about the irrationality of the rational people that one cannot escape. Sure, I gladly concede that this face, these eyes, and the end-times mood of Ulrich Weiß’s film Miraculi captivate one to an extent that is—in the Brechtian sense—undesirable for the arts. The film ensnares yet alienates.

But before the story, the history of the film. In 1978, according to the writer-director, it was tucked away in Neues Deutschland: the incredible story of a lake in Mecklenburg that had disappeared overnight. This report, as well as an unremarkable encounter with a ticket inspector, provided the impetus. But when Ulrich Weiß came to DEFA with the script, he was met with sympathetic laughter: “You know full well that this kind of thing can’t be made here, Ulli …”

After years of professional banishment (no films after Olle Henry [Old Henry, GDR 1983]), the clapboard first sounded on this new film in 1991. Originally titled “The Conductor,” it ultimately became known, for promotional reasons, as Miraculi. Actually quite funny, says Ulrich Weiß, who knows that one thinks of a spaghetti ad, but who all the while has the unspeakable, the absurd, and the unforeseen in the back of his mind.