Film Review: The Journey to Tilsit (Die Reise nach Tilsit, 1939)

Leni Riefenstahl is the first name associated with the cinema of the Third Reich, but it is Veit Harlan who is more fittingly regarded as Nazi Germany's biggest filmmaker, particularly considering his work in live-action films and the high budgets and ambitions that accompanied them. Harlan's films, are notable for their problematic nature, particularly those produced for propaganda purposes during World War II. However, The Journey to Tilsit, made before the war, appears less problematic at first glance.

The Journey to Tilsit is based on the eponymous short story by Herman Suderman, which was previously adapted by F.W. Murnau in 1927 into the Sunrise, often considered one of the best silent films ever made. Unlike Murnau's film, which refused to give names to its protagonists, describing them as "Man" and "Woman," The Journey to Tilsit is set in East Prussia and begins in the fishing village of Elkweder (now Golovkino in the Russian Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast). The protagonist, Endrik Settegast, played by Dutch actor Frits van Dongen, lives with his loving wife Elske (played by Kristina Söderbaum) and young son Jons (played by Joachim Plaff). Their idyllic life became disrupted when they took Madlyn Sapierska (played by Amma Damman), a beautiful Polish tourist, as a lodger. She seduced Endrik and created a scandal. Her constant attempts to bring Endrik with her and Endrik’s inablity to end the affair ultimately lead Elske to contemplate divorce. When it becomes apparent that Elske will give up everything but not their son, Enrik hatches a plan to, using the pretext of a shopping trip, take Elske on a boat to Tilsit (now Sovietsk) and stage a fatal accident. Elske realizes something is wrong and fatalistically accepts her fate, but Endrik ultimately cannot go through with the plan. The spouses instead continue to Tilsit, where they realise they love each other, but fate has another terrible ordeal in store for Elke.

Twelve years have passed between Sunrise and The Journey to Tilsit, and this period saw significant technological advancements in filmmaking. The most obvious change was the introduction of sound, which allowed Harlan and his co-writer Wolfgang Schlief to use dialogue and a more conventional form of storytelling based on exposition. This change is reflected in the style of the two films, with The Journey to Tilsit employing a more straightforward style that some critics later called "almost documentary" due to its use of authentic locations on the German Baltic coast and East Prussia.

The acting in The Journey to Tilsit is less expressive than in Sunrise, thanks to the use of expository dialogue. The performances are weaker, with Swedish actress Kristina Söderbaum, Harlan's muse and future wife, being dressed up and made up to look almost like Janet Gaynor in Sunrise. However, her performance is more melodramatic and less convincing. Frits van Dongen looks the part but remains strangely passive throughout the film. Anna Damman is more unbalanced than seductive in comparison with the vampish flapper character played by Margaret Livingston in Sunrise.

From a technical standpoint, The Journey to Tilsit is competently made, with effective black-and-white cinematography by Bruno Mondi and a serviceable music score by Hans-Otto Borgmann. The film also provides insight into the locations of East Prussia, which were still German at the time. This aspect of the film is particularly interesting, as it showcases the beauty of the region before it was lost to the Soviet Union.

The film is often viewed through the prism of Nazi ideology, and those who see Harlan as a propagandist might find some arguments in this film. The heroine, Elske, is an Aryan-looking blonde who lives a traditional life in the proper German countryside as a perfect housewife and mother. The antagonist, Madlyn, is a dark-haired woman from a distant and presumably degenerate big city (Warsaw) who is also a Pole, a citizen of a country with which Germany will be at war shortly before the film's premiere. Additionally, the liaison between a German man and a Slavic woman could be interpreted as an insult to Nazi principles of racial purity. However, those who want to defend Harlan might point out that Madlyn is actually shown in a more sympathetic light than her equivalent in Sunrise.

Despite appearing to be in line with the ruling ideology, The Journey to Tilsit created a stir among the Nazi establishment. During the premiere, Magda Goebbels, the wife of Joseph Goebbels, stormed off the theatre, apparently seeing too much parallel between the fictional story and the real-life scandal caused by her husband's very public affair with Czech actress Lida Baarova. Adolf Hitler, trying to nip similar scandals in the bud, ordered Goebbels to end the affair and had Baarova deported.

In conclusion, The Journey to Tilsit is not a groundbreaking nor exceptionally good film. However, Veit Harlan would have probably liked to be remembered for it rather than his more problematic films made during the war, such as Jew Süss.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

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