Interview with Kerstin Polte | Film "Blindgänger": "Bombs never stop falling"

In "Blindgänger," a bomb lies dormant in the ground in Hamburg's Schanzenviertel district. The area must be evacuated so it can be defused. What connection do you have with this topic?

My father was born in 1944 while fleeing Silesia. He never met his father because his father never returned from the war. Even though my family never talked about the war, the escape, and everything my grandmother went through alone with five small children, there are strikingly many similar patterns that have been passed on to my generation (that of the war grandchildren), which I share with my cousins—without us having grown up together. I then began to use family constellations, therapy, research, and interviews to get to the bottom of transgenerational trauma in order to process and heal it. Many people flinch when they hear sirens, even though they were never at war. When I heard that a retirement home had to be evacuated because of a World War II bomb, I pricked up my ears and thought: How absurd! Perhaps these people have encountered this bomb before in their lives.

In “Blindgänger” you now incorporate all your impressions and knowledge.

I wanted to tell a film in which a large bomb triggers many small bombs within people. They lead to people who otherwise wouldn't have met meeting and spending a moment together. It's about hope in a state of emergency and about what connects us across generations, backgrounds, and biographies. We always act as if the war were very far away. But the war still has an impact. Socially, but also personally. And the bombs don't stop falling...

How did you deal with the topic of bombs?

I've studied the full extent and perversion of war. Just imagine: there are people whose sole job is to think about how to kill other people most efficiently! Even back then, these bombs had all sorts of deadly traps, like dismantling locks and long-term fuses. Long-term fuses are extremely lethal because they detonate later. They only explode the moment everyone thinks they're safe and comes back out of the bunker. The mere fact that there are still 250,000 unexploded bombs in Germany that have not been defused is frightening. I've spoken to various people from the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Service (KRD), who have provided us with fantastic support. It was incredibly interesting to speak with the people from the KRD on a psychological level: What makes people tick when they're deployed 250 times a year and risk their lives almost daily for the rest of us? The head of the Hamburg Explosive Ordnance Disposal Service, for example, says goodbye to his wife every morning as if it were the last time. These are truly impressive people.

How realistic is the bomb disposal in the film?

The details are spot on. The actors attended a bomb disposal workshop, and the bomb disposal team was always present during the scenes with the bomb. We had the original suits and equipment (including an original, cored bomb) on set. The KRD also supported Anne Ratte-Polle (in the role of Lane) in the main scene, the bomb disposal. We also received the real, armored (defense) container in which the bomb disposal experts stay during a blast, in case the bomb does explode. Nothing is made up or a prop idea. Only the final moment, in which Lane actually attempts to defuse the bomb alone, is due to the dramaturgy of suspense. Normally, at least two people would be at the bomb.

How did it feel for you to present a slightly different, more diverse bomb disposal and evacuation team to the bomb disposal service? In Germany, such a team consists entirely of men!

After the team premiere, I asked Michael Hain, the head of the Hamburg Explosive Ordnance Disposal Service, how he liked the film. He had tears in his eyes and was deeply moved. He felt a strong connection with Otto (Bernhard Schütz), the head of the KRD in the film, because something similar happened to him. The Hamburg KRD really liked the film; they've also been trying to inspire women to pursue this profession for a long time. Personally, I think it's good to create role models and demonstrate possibilities. In the true feminist spirit: You can't become what you can't see.

The character of Otto is special. At first, he seems to fit the stereotype of the old white man, and then he reveals a completely different side of himself.

Several people have told me that the male characters in "Blindgänger" are particularly tender and that they rarely see such things in German cinema. I think we urgently need diverse male characters who can express emotions other than anger. In recent years, we've paid a lot of attention (and rightly so!) to the very neglected and stereotypical female characters, but we've forgotten that men also suffer under the patriarchy. I think it's great to see tender men on screen.

Otto discovers his drag self, Lane loves women, and there's also a transgender person, two Black women, and a refugee. This could easily have felt like a checklist, but it isn't. You sense that you want to portray society in all its diversity.

That was also the idea. We looked at the characters and asked ourselves what it means to cast someone from a marginalized group and what dimensions this origin defines. We didn't want to normalize them or problematize them, but rather develop complex and multifaceted characters. In rehearsals and many discussions, we tried to delve into the layers of the characters, right down to the smallest supporting character: For example, with the two police officers, who only have two small scenes. Or with Kübra Sekin, who plays a doctor who uses a wheelchair. With Thelma Buabeng (the head of the Hamburg fire department) and Haley (the industrial psychologist), we touched on their origins in a kitchen conversation and reduced the racist question "Where are you actually from?" to absurdity. The answer then turns out to be "Schanze" and "Poppenbüttel." In general, we always asked ourselves: Where is the cliché, and what would we rather see? Where is the surprising momentum? Diversity is touched upon, plays a role, but is not the central element or theme.

In general, you play with expectations that you either fulfill or do not fulfill…

If we thought: We'd actually rather see Otto petting a rabbit than the ticking time bomb, then we did it. I love Otto's character and how Bernhard (Schütz) plays him, even though at first glance he has very little in common with me, but I feel an incredible amount of empathy for him. I don't need a 50-year-old queer woman to immerse myself in a film, because it's always about empathy, and we can feel that for all people and living beings.

"Blindgänger": Germany 2024. Directed and written by Kerstin Polte. Starring: Anne Ratte-Polle, Haley Louise Jones, and Bernhard Schütz. 95 minutes, release: May 29.