Und in der Mitte, da sind wir
Director: Sebastian Brameshuber
Writer: Sebastian Brameshuber

“Plot”:
In 2009 in the village of Ebensee (Austria), teenagers interrupted a WW2 memorial service at a former concentration camp by shooting people with air guns while shouting Nazi slogans. Und in der Mitte, da sind wir is a documentary about the lives of three teenagers living in Ebensee right now and about the entire community’s way of dealing with what happend in 2009 and in World War 2.

As somebody from Austria and rather aware of the Nazi remainders in our culture, Und in der Mitte, da sind wir didn’t provide a whole lot of new insight. But Brameshuber has a good eye for scenes and events that should be featured in his documentary. And for people not as familiar with the problems in Austria, it should certainly be a good primer.

Ebensee is a community steeped in tradition. Old rituals are alive and kicking, the kids like to listen to Austrian folk music and things are done a certain way. And that includes not talking about stuff in the past that didn’t go so well. The phrase most heard in the entire documentary was “the past is in the past, let’s leave it there. There’s no need to talk about the atrocities committed in World War 2, it was horrible but it is over. Kids shouting Nazi slogans is just kids being stupid kids. No need to dredge up stuff that is better left alone.”

But the thing is: they’ve always been saying that. Probably even before World War 2. Regarding World War 2, Austria is generally very committed to an ostrich policy: If we don’t speak about it, it never happened. And that of course means that nothing is ever actually dealt with unless we’re really, really forced to deal with it.

And Brameshuber illustrates the problem of that beautifully with this documentary. He shows the claustrophobic and practically perspective-less environment that is a small Austrian village with a high unemployment rate, especially among the young. He shows how influenced the kids are by the weapons manufactory nearby that is one of the few ways to actually get out of there, which translates to an idealization of and obsession with weapons. He shows the unwillingness of people to actually deal with anything related to Nazis, while the kids joke about that stuff thoughtlessly, only making perfunctory attempts.

To me, the conclusion that ignoring the problem and pretending that everything will sort itself out on its own actually make them grow and fester just below the surface is nothing new. It’s a very Austrian way of (not) dealing. But Brameshuber sensitively dissects that mindset even while he never shows up the kids: there is always an awareness that they are just kids who live in a problem-laden environment.

Summarizing: A good watch.