Redupers is a 1978 film from the notable feminist director Helke Sander. Photographer Edda struggles to fulfill her duties as a mother while also pushing back against the narrow vision of women's art that she and a group of female artists have been stifled by. Clear here are the feminist undertones; the film's conflict appears to be a divergence of the expectations and reality in the life of women. While a worthy topic, the simplistic portrayal of this particular aspect can leave viewers underwhelmed.
What others have missed is the artful way Sander applies the East/West divide of Berlin to play into this dichotomy and deepen the commentary on women's experiences. As Julie Mayne argues in her review of the film, Redupers is dedicated to the integration of supposedly dichotomous categories. It does so by having the female artists find similarities between the supposed opposites of East and West Berlin, proving that many binaries are falsely juxtaposed. Mayne writes about this in conjunction with the private/public divide that has been the site of a longstanding feminist debate, but I believe that the gap between expectation and reality also fits within this analysis. In a particularly striking scene, Edda's artist group puts a curtain around an elevated platform, gathering a group of eager tourists. When the women open the curtain to reveal the rather unremarkable sight of an East Berlin street, the tourists stand quietly, confused and disappointed. Their thirst for sensationalized difference is not satisfied by the boring reality of a similar looking life on the other side of the wall. Likewise, when Sander pulls back the curtain and shows the reality of women's lives, the audience is often too disappointed by the lack of spectacle that they entirely miss the point; women's lives are challenging in a very ordinary sort of way that can't always be dramatized. Perhaps interpretations of the film as a superficial presentation of women's issues is just more proof of Sander's point.
What others have missed is the artful way Sander applies the East/West divide of Berlin to play into this dichotomy and deepen the commentary on women's experiences. As Julie Mayne argues in her review of the film, Redupers is dedicated to the integration of supposedly dichotomous categories. It does so by having the female artists find similarities between the supposed opposites of East and West Berlin, proving that many binaries are falsely juxtaposed. Mayne writes about this in conjunction with the private/public divide that has been the site of a longstanding feminist debate, but I believe that the gap between expectation and reality also fits within this analysis. In a particularly striking scene, Edda's artist group puts a curtain around an elevated platform, gathering a group of eager tourists. When the women open the curtain to reveal the rather unremarkable sight of an East Berlin street, the tourists stand quietly, confused and disappointed. Their thirst for sensationalized difference is not satisfied by the boring reality of a similar looking life on the other side of the wall. Likewise, when Sander pulls back the curtain and shows the reality of women's lives, the audience is often too disappointed by the lack of spectacle that they entirely miss the point; women's lives are challenging in a very ordinary sort of way that can't always be dramatized. Perhaps interpretations of the film as a superficial presentation of women's issues is just more proof of Sander's point.