Review of Solo Sunny – an East German gem about ambition, loneliness and faded dreams | Video

TThe grim sadness, despair and horror of the former GDR is encapsulated in this East German film from 1980; it could be a version of the B-side to Bob Fosse’s Cabaret. Heroine, would-be soloist Sunny, is told by her silent MC that she is not Liza Minnelli; Cabaret fans may accidentally recognize the German word “bumsen”.

Solo Sunny is the work of Konrad “Koni” Wolf, a director with an interesting and unusual history: he was a government-approved artist in East Germany, much admired at the Berlin film festival, whose brother Markus was one of the top officials of the Stasi. It makes Wolf the second most political German filmmaker in history. (Disillusioned communist East Germany Jenny Erpenbeck’s book Kairos is a big fan of Wolf.)

Ingrid “Sunny” Sommer, played by Renate Krößner, was a factory worker who toured the GDR with a group of very dirty gangsters who played in clubs and community centers, led by a tired, sub-jazz-funk group called the Tornadoes; he is one of the guest singers and has a different kind of acrobat and MC-slash-comedian. Sexy Sunny falls for Ralph (Alexander Lang), their stand-up sax player who is also a brilliant intellectual; Ralph writes an English version of the James Bond torch song that Sunny has written herself. Their brief relationship inspires Sunny to try her own job, to break free from all these losers, a scary group made up of stupid boys with bad habits who beat her.

In pursuit of an exciting solo career, is Sunny rejecting the GDR’s collective ideals in favor of the Western capitalist aesthetic? The question is not clearly asked, but – perhaps without any real intention – the Wolf allows us to see the painful desire in each species. “Do you think someone who is not famous can have a personality?” Sunny asks sadly at one point. “It’s worth wishing…” answers a member of another group. There’s something so infuriating about shots of gaudy buildings, faded denim and boxy Trabants on the dark streets of. Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg.