A Brief History of Communism. "Rabbit à la Berlin" by Bartosz Konopka

The documentary film Rabbit à la Berlin (Królik po berlińsku), directed by Bartosz Konopka, tells the story of the Berlin Wall. The story is presented from an unusual perspective – that of the wild rabbits inhabiting the zone in the middle of the wall separating East and West Berlin, thus making reference to animal fables and the conventions of the nature film. The filmmakers also use known archival materials in an interesting way by placing them in new, surprising contexts. The story of animals told in Rabbit á la Berlin is parallel to that of people. The film combines these analogies in order to construct a powerful metaphor. The creators of Rabbit á la Berlin not only tell the story of the Germans, of East Germans separated from the western world, the story of the Berlin Wall, but also the story of Eastern European people living behind the Iron Curtain.