Confused
Why a donkey? Why is he in Cairo? Is Fischer the real killer? I think I'm going to have to watch this movie again.
shareOk, actually I like the movie too much to start bullshitting about it, but since this movie leaves a lot open and people are invited to have different opinions about it, I give my two cents (which really don't have to be the ultimate truth).
Why donkey?
I don't know, but I think LvT is willing to show mass graves in this movie. For arts sake he uses donkeys.
Cairo?
Is a place of exil. But was Fisher really 13 years in Cairo? Well, I don't want to spoil anything here. Whatever it was, during his absence something terrible happened to Europe. We see it got flooded? But with what? Only water? Or dead corpses? Murders? Hmmmh, and why does Fisher asked for the skills learned in Auschwitz during the autopsy? Hmmmh?
This movie plays in a post apocalyptic germany, and LvT really emphasis "half" -> city of "Halberstadt" (in Englisch "halfcity", cities really exits) or "halbe Nacht" (the only two german words in it meaning "half night"). It think, those translation might interesting for non german viewers to solve the puzzle.
Also try to find an English version of the music that is played during the final score. It helps you see the second-historical layer to this very good crime thriller.
g.
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hvlukas,
that's a very good point and probably gives a valid explanation, besides the reasoning that he uses animals to simply make the situation/movie more surreal.
About post-revolutionary russian movies, I think animals or horse were often used to make farmers and workers understand the propaganda. It was thought, that a horse is something a non-intellectual can understand a the "idea" of society. E.g. it helps the farmer work on the field but it needs care itself. It needs to be fed but it can also give meat later on, etc. The same as society was meant to be fed, you have to give something to society and in return society will feed and protect you. That was the idea to bring the communist thought to non-educated people.
One has to ask of course if that symbol is valid and works in Triers movie(s), since his target audience is definately not rural Russia, but rather the city population of Western societies. If that is the case and his intention (horse killed by people like civilized society and culture was killed in WWII), I have to say he failed in choosing those symbols.
Before you posted your ideas, I only saw horses used as a surreal way of describing whatever as such.
g.
The first donkey/horse shots are a reference or a tribute to Tarkovsky. Just check out his Andrei Rublev. There's a horse rolling on the ground and, later, falling from a balcony.