And the wall came tumbling down

Today is the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It's also, as George Packer points out, the anniversary of the date of Kaiser Wilhelm's abdication, the Beer Hall Putsch, and Kristallnacht. "The German calendar is appropriately inconvenient: nothing good is conserved without the active remembrance of something bad," he writes.

How true. As a history major born on the 43rd anniversary of the use of the atomic bomb, a subject which I've thought about and written about to death, I've spent my entire life trying to learn that history doesn't discriminate. Certainly, people instigate events, and make decisions on specific dates for reasons, but ultimately, we have no control over what happens on the anniversary of any given day.

We like to tie historical events to memorable causes. But more often than not, the path of history is much more inglorious than we would like to admit, as Packer writes:

The wall came down not because Ronald Reagan stood up and demanded it but because on the evening of November 9th, at a televised press conference in East Berlin, a Party hack named Günter Schabowski flubbed a question about the regime’s new, liberalized travel regulations. Asked when they took effect, Schabowski shrugged, scratched his head, checked some papers, and said, “Immediately,” sending thousands of East Berliners to the wall in a human tide that the German Democratic Republic could not control. Soldiers and Stasi agents didn’t shoot into the crowd, but things could easily have gone otherwise.

What many like to see as an inevitable conclusion and what nearly everyone sees as an inspiring symbol of the end of an era only occured because of a strange set of coincidences and mistakes. And as epic and beautiful as that image is, we need to remember that there are many more forces at work than just fate and justice in the creation of history

And so then, how to treat the death of Vitaly Ginzburg, a fascinating man instrumental in the creation of the Soviet H-bomb? With him dies one more memory of a terrifying period in human history, one more account of Stalin's brutality.

That is perhaps the greatest loss. How will we remember the past when those who have experienced it are gone? At Brown University, my fair undergraduate institution, we celebrated the fall of the Berlin Wall with German spoken word, free sausages, and a reenactment of the day, complete with tearing down a mock wall on the Main Green. At the same time, on another quad, football players in pink shirts bench pressed weights to raise money for breast cancer as students cheered them on.

Coincidence? Certainly. What does it mean? You got me. At any rate, I'm glad it happened, just as people around the world, including myself, are happy for the coincidences of twenty years ago, as we all should be.

Hell No, We Won't Go... To the Ghettos, or to Crappy Chick Flicks

I went to see Defiance today with my family, which is the second WWII movie I've seen since I've been home. I was totally into the concept of the film-- I'm very interested in both the Holocaust and Daniel Craig (in different ways, of course) so it sounded like it was going to be pretty good

The only problem: it was also a film that involved a lot of traipsing around in the forest. And films that involve a lot of meandering through the forest inevitably have meandering plots as well. Telling the story of a group of nearly 1200 people is not without difficulties, and Defiance had a hard time creating a cohesive storyline with fleshed-out, multi faceted characters. Issues that should have been present throughout the entire film -- the meaning of resistance, the humanity of the enemy, diaspora -- popped up briefly, only to disappear again. Also, deus ex machina should just not be allowed in films about the Holocaust.

Defiance wasn't bad by any means; the performances were heartfelt, if not outstanding, and it treated its subject in a very sensitive manner. But with so many other outstanding, tightly written Holocaust films in existence, its weaknesses made it almost seem like an artistic lightweight in comparison. It certainly opened my eyes to a part of the Holocaust I haven't studied in much depth, and I'll definitely be picking up the monograph the film is based on -- I feel like the compelling story of the Bielski Otriad would be better told in book form.

More staggering than the filmmakers' decision not to use more Jewish actors (Craig acted well, but looked more like a rugby player alongside many of the Eastern European Jewish supporting actors) was the movie theater's decision to show the trailer for He's Just Not That Into You -- a bona fide boneheaded chick flick, before Defiance.

I'm usually only mildly incensed by most chick flicks, but HJNTIY took my anger to new levels. The portrayals of both men and women seemed grossly inaccurate, and, quite frankly, wildly offensive. Watch the trailer for yourself.

But wait! Maybe they only seemed inaccurate because I'm not in my late twenties/early thirties yet. Once the biological alarm clock goes off and starts demanding that I get to babymakin', maybe I'll be just as pathetic as the women of HJNTIY, who stare at their cell phones through yoga class, waiting for the confused, dim male stars of the movie to call them. I can't wait until I am consumed by the quiet panic of the genetically ingrained need to marry and everything else in my life seems meaningless. Woo hoo!

Also, they used the Cure's "Friday I'm in Love" in the preview. Not OK. The Cure are all about moping unapologetically in the abstract sense. One cannot fully appreciate the genius of "Bloodflowers" or "Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me" while waiting by the phone for the latest mediocre barfly to call. One should be between the ages of 14 and 21 and preferably wearing a Smiths T-Shirt. Zing.