I expected Paula would live a happy life through with her love, Paul.
I was disappointed because Paula died at the end. However, the ending was beyond happiness or misery, which made it such a vintage, in my perception. So I have to admit that it was the only decent ending that not just agreed with the movie’s overtones but vividly mirrored people’s real life in East Germany as well.
In the first scene where Paula appeared, she wore a pair of bootcut pants with a floral pattern shirt tucked in, which made her, being a young single mother look striking yet fine. The way she dressed has always been in place for street fashion ever since it came out. Even now, the style can be seen popularly, as being labeled a vintage of street wear.
In the last scene where Paula appeared, she was running across the street, in a polka dots slim dress. Her movement had never been so stunning and she looked just perfectly fine in the polka dots slim dress, which I found an abidingly crush. Her smile, her movement, and her dress all came to make her an icon of vintage German in 1970s.
The film was set in East Berlin where the destruction and consolidation were going on at some portions in the city, as can be seen in some scenes. For instance, the destruction of prewar buildings at the beginning and couple of shots were cutting through the film. Besides, the first night that Paul and Paula met, they ended up in Paul’s tiny, shabby shelter which seemed like a dumped garage sitting alone on a construction set. The camera captured these explicit scenes and details that all came up as a big picture of an overall view of the city under East Germany, which contributed a lot to its sense of reality.
Then there came the people living in the city, businessman, like the tire owner who pursued Paula implicitly, cashiers, like Paula and her coworkers, bureaucrats, like Paul and his colleagues, doctor, the one who suggested Paula to take pills to help her survive, fine artists featured in the concert scene, and many other faces that represented diverse statuses in order to label this film a symbolism of real life in East Berlin.
Further, the connection and relations of characters were played by the interacting of people from different backgrounds, joint and disjoint of relationship, like Paula and her living-in-then-thrown-out lover, Paul and his repeated unfaithful wife. The scene in which I found immensely emotional appeal was the night club dance, the moment when Paul and Paula realized that they had an instant crush on each other while dancing in others arms. As the soft tune flew in, they were making goo-goo eyes at each other. Particularly in Paula’s case, her eyes were so lost and beautiful when she stared at Paul, which I found so gripping and was convinced that they belonged to each other.
The ending was a grief, but only after I realized that Paula was dead (the subtitle was mugging and I had to find a well subtitled version on youtube) because of giving birth to her child with Paul. Initially I didn’t like the ending at all. It was too sad. But during Paula’s last conversation with her doctor, she was sincerely eager to give birth to the child, even if being aware of her death. As she said, Paul was the only one for her. So she decided to have the child. The camera followed her as she ran across the street, happily yet freely. And the end scene was Paul cuddling his three children, two with Paula and one with his ex, sleeping tight in the bed. I have to say that the music saved the ending. Without the music, the ending would be just dry and disappointing. But the uplifting tune made it more bitter-sweet than gloomy-despaired.
Finally, I found excessive interest in the scene that when Paula was picking up the coals dumped out, there were couple of shots of photos from a film called “Angélique, The road to Versailles” cutting in and out. The film was an adaption of “Angélique”, a series of historical adventure books written by French novelist duo Anne and Serge Golon. In my perception, fitting photos from that film into the scene was a reflection to the contemporary influence upon people's life in East Berlin. Though it was 1970s, people still lived in a society where the poor was scarce of care and the rich was carelessly apathetic.
