God Doesn't Believe in Us Anymore

Corti’s highly impressive trilogy, written with Georg Stefan Troller and entitled ‘Where To and Back Again’ is both cinematically rich, politically subtle and compassionate. The first part follows the escape from Vienna of a passive 12-year-old Jewish boy following the death of his father during the events of Kristallnacht in 1938; the second, the emigrant life in wartime New York of his friend Freddy; the third Freddy’s and a soldier buddy’s return to Vienna with American forces through 1944/45. Originally made in black-and-white for tv, and subsequently released theatrically, Corti’s trilogy provides a fascinating alternative history of the Austrian experience, seen this time from the point-of-view of the displaced survivors of the Nazi nightmare. To Troller’s exceptional screenplay, Corti brings a firm mastery of tone (reminiscent of that found in Wajda’s war trilogy, minus that director’s leanings towards romanticism), sustained by a number of selfless and moving performances (not least from Silberschneider, Barylli and Mueller-Stahl) and some fine camerawork from Wolfgang Treu and Gernot Rollby, marvellously recontructing wartime locations and milieu’s within restricted means.