Unhappy End: Understanding Silence in Andreas Dresen’s Stilles Land

This article considers the role of silence in Andreas Dresen’s 1992 debut film Stilles Land (Silent Country). It initially provides background on the film’s setting, the theater of Anklam, its recent history and significance, before discussing the general role of theater in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the play rehearsed and performed in the film, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. One heretofore overlooked aspect in which the film is connected to the play is through the use of silence. Dresen employs silence in ways akin to Beckett, not to pause or interrupt but as an integral part of the film’s narrative structure. In Silent Country, silence points to the absence of political progress, evokes past trauma, works as a form of resistance, and creates space for the utopian desire for a just society. In documenting these instances, Silent Country creates an archive of unspoken emotions and protests, preserving an essential part of what was the GDR. In its critique of GDR socialism, the film moreover aligns itself with the institutional function of theater in East Germany, which was to point to the regime’s shortcomings and evoke the horizon of its original political quest.