Book and direction Ruth Beckermann Cinematography Nurith Aviv Camera assistance Claire Bailly du Bois Sound Josef Aichholzer, Reinhold Kaiser, Heinz Ebner Editing Gertraud Luschützky Text consulting Peter Stastny Mixing Othmar Eichinger Music Arvo Pärt Production leadership Josef Aichholzer Production Filmladen
Berlin 1987
London 1987
New York 1987
Wien 1987
Cinema should also be about the before, the after, and everything in between. That’s why we liked to keep the camera rolling at the end of a shot: the really interesting stuff often happens after the superficially “important” has taken place.
For Paper Bridge, I had long wish lists of what I hoped would happen, the people I wanted to meet, the landscapes I would see. And then these wishes came true! The crew drove through Hungary to Romania in a Ford Transit loaded with equipment, and the first shot we made was that horse carriage in the fog. This was one of the images I had dreamed of for these stories—and then it suddenly appeared on the road right in front of us: Stop, stop, stop—ready the camera! We set up the tripod on our car—I cannot even remember how we did it. But when the mental image you had conjured, appears right before your eyes, you must not hesitate, you have to take it. What I never do is send out a location scout to organize a horse carriage in advance and then wait and hope for fog—that’s boring and has nothing to do with the adventure of documentary film.
Elfriede Jelinek
Was ich toll finde an diesem Film, ist, dass er etwas versucht, was eigentlich nicht möglich ist, nämlich ein individuelles Schicksal darzustellen innerhalb eines Volkes, das eigentlich keines mehr haben dürfte, angesichts dieses Hintergrundes, dieser wahnsinnigen Masse an Toten. Im Grunde kann man über Juden nicht als Individuen sprechen, sofort ist dieser riesige Totenteppich da. Und dieser Film versucht sozusagen, aus diesem Zwang zur Entindividualisierung wieder Einzelschicksale herauszuholen. Ohne Sentimentalität und ohne sie immer als Opfer zu definieren.
Cristina Nord
Der Vater, ein Mann aus Czernowitz, schließt sich der Roten Armee an, der Mutter glückt es, als Teenager nach Palästina zu entkommen, anderen ist das Glück versagt, sie werden in die Konzentrations- und Vernichtungslager verschleppt. In diesem Sinne stellt Die papierene Brücke den Versuch dar, vergangene, von den Verwerfungen des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts verursachte Bewegungen nachzuzeichnen. Fluchtrouten, Passagen, Orte, die Heimat waren und es längst nicht mehr sind.
So ist der Film eine Rekonstruktion, wenn auch eine, die sich ihrer eigenen Grenzen bewusst ist. Beckermann fahndet nach den letzten Spuren einer untergegangenen Welt, nach den Anteilen der Habsburgermonarchie, die tolerant, multireligiös und multikulturell waren, nach den Relikten jener Bukowina, in der Juden, Rumänen, Ruthenen, Deutsche und andere koexistieren konnten. Dieser Verlust löst noch Jahrzehnte später Phantomschmerzen aus.
Elfriede Jelinek
What I find great about this film is that it attempts the impossible, namely, to depict an individual’s fate within a people which, when confronted with the insane number of dead behind it, really shouldn’t have one anymore. Ultimately, one really can’t speak about Jewish people as individuals; the massive row of dead immediately rears its head. And this film attempts to retrieve out of this compulsion towards deindividualization an individual fate. Without sentimentality and without constantly defining them as a victim.
Cristina Nord
The father, a man from Chernivtsi, joins the Red Army; the mother manages to escape to Palestine. Others are denied such luck and end up deported to concentration- and extermination camps. In this sense, Paper Bridge is the attempt to retrace the movements of those dislocated by the twentieth century. Escape routes, passages, and places that were once home and have long ceased to be.
Thus, the film is a reconstruction, even if it is one that is aware of its own boundaries. Beckermann searches for the last traces of a bygone world, for those aspects of the Habsburg Monarchy that were tolerant, multireligious and multicultural, for the remains of a Bukovina, where Jews, Romanians, Ruthenians, Germans and others could coexist. Even decades later, such a loss still causes phantom pains.