Sometimes I watch movies...
So I checked this German movie out from the library called "The State I Am In" (Die Innere Sicherheit, which actually means something more like "The Inner Certainty.") I was intrigued by the premise because it seemed like a darker, German version of "Running on Empty," a film I saw in the 1980s with Judd Hirsch and River Phoenix. And that's pretty much what it was, so I thought I'd compare them a little bit. (Keeping in mind that the last time I saw Running on Empty was a long time ago.)
Both films are about leftist radical couples on the run from the law, and both are families with children. Annie and Arthur in Running on Empty have two boys, a teen named Danny and a younger boy named Harry. Clara and Hans in The State I Am In have a teenage daughter, Jeanne.
Annie and Arthur are on the run in the U.S. after blowing up a napalm plant. The explosion blinded a janitor who was not supposed to be there at the time. Clara and Hans's exact crimes are unspecified but it's heavily implied they were mixed up in some even nastier stuff. They are hiding in Portugal but later have to return to their home country of Germany when their money is stolen. Annie and Arthur are not violent people (except for the blowing up buildings part I suppose) and at one point when another character brings guns to Arthur's house he is furious and tells his sons "That is not what we are about." Whereas Clara and Hans own guns themselves.
In "Running on Empty" you get a fairly good picture of why the parents became radicals. Arthur was a "red diaper baby" raised by communist parents and Annie is pretty clearly rebelling against her own wealthy, more conservative family. Whereas with Clara and Hans, who are blatantly described as "terrorists" in the plot summary, you don't really get any feel for why they turned into the people they are or how they feel about their crimes now. (Though at one point they do upbraid a fellow leftist for selling out and becoming an ordinary capitalist type.) I think this is probably deliberate -- it's showing how Clara and Hans have lost touch with everything except being on the run.
One interesting question is why these families had children in these circumstances. Annie and Arthur's older son was already born when they blew up the plant, but they did have another son. Jeanne was born after Clara and Hans were already on the run. With Annie and Arthur I had this feeling that at one point they somehow believed the world was going to change and they would be able to live openly again. (It's clear they don't believe this any longer, and at one point Annie tells her father that when her younger son is old enough to be without her she will turn herself in.)
With Clara and Hans I did not get a grasp on why they would have a child. And again, I think that was deliberate -- they themselves don't seem to know why, and neither does their daughter. Arthur and Annie, while they very much regret blinding the janitor, want to pass their values on to their sons. Whereas I did not get the feeling the Jeanne even knew anything about what her parents believed.
Both films feature a male character who is a source of temptation to the mother. In Running on Empty this is subtle -- he comes for a visit and is seen trying to soothe Annie. (He later gets the family in trouble by stealing credit card numbers.) In The State I Am In it's much more blatant -- a man named Klaus tries to help them, but Hans hates Klaus and it later comes out that Klaus believes he may actually be Jeanne's biological father, especially since she looks nothing like Hans. (Her mother assures her that isn't the case.)
Both films also feature teenagers falling in love, and that's where they start going into very different territory.
Danny, Arthur and Annie's older son, falls in love with a girl he meets in a town they are staying in. This is apparently his first relationship because the family has moved around so much and kept so many secrets. At one point he tells his girlfriend the truth about his family, but she promises to keep his secret. Danny also has aspirations to be a musician, but obviously can't apply to universities under the circumstances. The family eventually decides to continue running, but to leave Danny behind in that town to live under his real name and go to university. It seems like the "happiest" ending possible under the circumstances, and that is one of the reasons Running on Empty ends up being a bittersweet and fairly gentle film, though the viewer of course has to still make their own decision on whether Arthur and Annie deserved to get off so lightly. The film does portray them very sympathetically though, and I couldn't help but think that the intent was to "root for them" to some degree.
Jeanne meets a German boy in Portugal and meets up with him later in Germany. She refuses to tell him anything about her family and he guesses that maybe she is in some sort of cult. Clara and Hans are broke and on the run and have no idea how to handle having a teenage daughter on top of that. At one point they decide to leave her with a friend, but on the way there she convinces them to turn around. Eventually Clara and Hans decide their only option is to rob a bank, even though Clara had said they could never do that with Jeanne around. But in the end they actually send Jeanne to check on a good exit route from the bank. Around then I started losing any sympathy I may have had for Clara and Hans. (To be honest, I didn't start out with a lot. They just didn't seem like very good parents besides not being very good people. I think this was partly symbolized by the fact that Jeanne can constantly hear them having sex. Their dream is to live in peace and give Jeanne a normal life, but they also seem very selfish.)
In the end they do rob the bank, and Jeanne's boyfriend approaches her while she is waiting with the getaway car. She is very cruel to him as a way of getting him to go away, and it's a painful scene. He actually strikes her before he leaves. When the parents show up, the robbery has gone badly, the father has been shot, and the mother has shot a man herself. The police still don't seem to know where they are hiding however, and they still plan to leave Germany the next day.
Jeanne runs away to her boyfriend and tells him she didn't mean any of the things she said. She tells him her parents are living in hiding and says she wants to stay with him. He tells her he knows her parents must be connected with the bank robbery and she doesn't deny it. Later he is seen on the telephone calling the authorities. She doesn't know this because she has already changed her mind and run back to her parents. In the morning, the three of them start driving, with the father still ill from his gunshot wound. They are surrounded by black cars which shoot up their car and run it off the road. The parents are apparently killed, but at the end it's revealed that Jeanne was thrown from the car and seems unhurt. That's the end of the film. I was left wondering if the boyfriend called the authorities for her sake, or because he was still angry at her cruelty, or something in between.
So despite having very similar content, the films have very different tones. Running on Empty is about a family whose dreams have run out, but they still want to do the best by their children. The State I Am In is a much darker story which shows a family with no hope. I wonder how much the differing views of past leftist idealism in the U.S. and Germany contributed to the difference between the two films.
Both films are about leftist radical couples on the run from the law, and both are families with children. Annie and Arthur in Running on Empty have two boys, a teen named Danny and a younger boy named Harry. Clara and Hans in The State I Am In have a teenage daughter, Jeanne.
Annie and Arthur are on the run in the U.S. after blowing up a napalm plant. The explosion blinded a janitor who was not supposed to be there at the time. Clara and Hans's exact crimes are unspecified but it's heavily implied they were mixed up in some even nastier stuff. They are hiding in Portugal but later have to return to their home country of Germany when their money is stolen. Annie and Arthur are not violent people (except for the blowing up buildings part I suppose) and at one point when another character brings guns to Arthur's house he is furious and tells his sons "That is not what we are about." Whereas Clara and Hans own guns themselves.
In "Running on Empty" you get a fairly good picture of why the parents became radicals. Arthur was a "red diaper baby" raised by communist parents and Annie is pretty clearly rebelling against her own wealthy, more conservative family. Whereas with Clara and Hans, who are blatantly described as "terrorists" in the plot summary, you don't really get any feel for why they turned into the people they are or how they feel about their crimes now. (Though at one point they do upbraid a fellow leftist for selling out and becoming an ordinary capitalist type.) I think this is probably deliberate -- it's showing how Clara and Hans have lost touch with everything except being on the run.
One interesting question is why these families had children in these circumstances. Annie and Arthur's older son was already born when they blew up the plant, but they did have another son. Jeanne was born after Clara and Hans were already on the run. With Annie and Arthur I had this feeling that at one point they somehow believed the world was going to change and they would be able to live openly again. (It's clear they don't believe this any longer, and at one point Annie tells her father that when her younger son is old enough to be without her she will turn herself in.)
With Clara and Hans I did not get a grasp on why they would have a child. And again, I think that was deliberate -- they themselves don't seem to know why, and neither does their daughter. Arthur and Annie, while they very much regret blinding the janitor, want to pass their values on to their sons. Whereas I did not get the feeling the Jeanne even knew anything about what her parents believed.
Both films feature a male character who is a source of temptation to the mother. In Running on Empty this is subtle -- he comes for a visit and is seen trying to soothe Annie. (He later gets the family in trouble by stealing credit card numbers.) In The State I Am In it's much more blatant -- a man named Klaus tries to help them, but Hans hates Klaus and it later comes out that Klaus believes he may actually be Jeanne's biological father, especially since she looks nothing like Hans. (Her mother assures her that isn't the case.)
Both films also feature teenagers falling in love, and that's where they start going into very different territory.
Danny, Arthur and Annie's older son, falls in love with a girl he meets in a town they are staying in. This is apparently his first relationship because the family has moved around so much and kept so many secrets. At one point he tells his girlfriend the truth about his family, but she promises to keep his secret. Danny also has aspirations to be a musician, but obviously can't apply to universities under the circumstances. The family eventually decides to continue running, but to leave Danny behind in that town to live under his real name and go to university. It seems like the "happiest" ending possible under the circumstances, and that is one of the reasons Running on Empty ends up being a bittersweet and fairly gentle film, though the viewer of course has to still make their own decision on whether Arthur and Annie deserved to get off so lightly. The film does portray them very sympathetically though, and I couldn't help but think that the intent was to "root for them" to some degree.
Jeanne meets a German boy in Portugal and meets up with him later in Germany. She refuses to tell him anything about her family and he guesses that maybe she is in some sort of cult. Clara and Hans are broke and on the run and have no idea how to handle having a teenage daughter on top of that. At one point they decide to leave her with a friend, but on the way there she convinces them to turn around. Eventually Clara and Hans decide their only option is to rob a bank, even though Clara had said they could never do that with Jeanne around. But in the end they actually send Jeanne to check on a good exit route from the bank. Around then I started losing any sympathy I may have had for Clara and Hans. (To be honest, I didn't start out with a lot. They just didn't seem like very good parents besides not being very good people. I think this was partly symbolized by the fact that Jeanne can constantly hear them having sex. Their dream is to live in peace and give Jeanne a normal life, but they also seem very selfish.)
In the end they do rob the bank, and Jeanne's boyfriend approaches her while she is waiting with the getaway car. She is very cruel to him as a way of getting him to go away, and it's a painful scene. He actually strikes her before he leaves. When the parents show up, the robbery has gone badly, the father has been shot, and the mother has shot a man herself. The police still don't seem to know where they are hiding however, and they still plan to leave Germany the next day.
Jeanne runs away to her boyfriend and tells him she didn't mean any of the things she said. She tells him her parents are living in hiding and says she wants to stay with him. He tells her he knows her parents must be connected with the bank robbery and she doesn't deny it. Later he is seen on the telephone calling the authorities. She doesn't know this because she has already changed her mind and run back to her parents. In the morning, the three of them start driving, with the father still ill from his gunshot wound. They are surrounded by black cars which shoot up their car and run it off the road. The parents are apparently killed, but at the end it's revealed that Jeanne was thrown from the car and seems unhurt. That's the end of the film. I was left wondering if the boyfriend called the authorities for her sake, or because he was still angry at her cruelty, or something in between.
So despite having very similar content, the films have very different tones. Running on Empty is about a family whose dreams have run out, but they still want to do the best by their children. The State I Am In is a much darker story which shows a family with no hope. I wonder how much the differing views of past leftist idealism in the U.S. and Germany contributed to the difference between the two films.