French and German Film as a Theater for Working Through the Horrors of the Second World War

In the decades following WWII, both France and Germany sacrificed an understanding of their recent past in order to quickly recover. However, this reconstructed Europe was built on a foundation of silence, myth, and unclaimed responsibility; issues that would return to haunt the people. Raised in silence about the national past, a second generation came of age and began to demand some kind of understanding. In France and Germany, several filmmakers took up this cause, exploring issues of memory of the war, depersonalized and displaced guilt, and the incomplete national identities that developed.