The Tin Drum

[Foxbat]

Won the academy award for best foreign film in 1979 and is adapted from the Gunter Grass novel of the same name.

The story centres around Oscar – born in Danzig between the first and second world wars. His birth memory is of a sixty-watt light bulb – around which a moth rhythmically beats its wings – and the voice of his mother promising him a tin drum on his third birthday.

He is a witness to his mother’s unhappiness and her torn affection for her husband and her cousin. He becomes aware of all the sexual tensions and liaisons this leads to. Running in parallel to this (and mirroring the arc of Oscar’s life) is the rise of Nazi Germany. Oscar, disillusioned by his experiences, decides to stop growing. He begins an almost Peter Pan-like existence – beating his drum wherever he goes – forever the child. Sometimes adults, infuriated by the constant din, try to take the drum from him, but Oscar discovers a secret weapon – he can shatter glass with his voice. Any time a threat to his drum appears, he screams until something expensive is broken and the threatening individual is forced into a retreat.

Danzig becomes a focal point of all German disaffection and a visible split appears within the city as friend turns upon friend. On the 1st of September 1939, Oscar becomes involved in the siege of the Danzig Post Office – one of the first actions in what will become World War 2. His life, at this point – and like so many of this time, is moulded by the events of history. He is a little man caught up in massive events – like so many others. By the end of the war, Oscar makes an important choice.

The acting is superb in this film, which has some wonderful moments of black comedy threaded through it and, yet, at the same time has periods which are sometimes deeply moving and sometimes verging on cruelty. The Cinematography is top notch with a variety interesting scenes – The Church Tower attack of Oscar’s drum - like some demented rhythmic miniature sniper, the potato field at the beginning of the movie which, ultimately, leads to Oscar’s existence, the horse head crammed with eels and many more memorable moments throughout.

This is a German movie of the highest calibre that will have you pondering the events placed before you. Funny, thought provoking, frown inducing - it is definitely a movie that needs more than one viewing – more importantly – it is a movie that is worth watching more than once.