Ghost town Kreuzberg
Muskauer Str. 1973
Dino De Laurentiis and I had agreed that the film [The Serpent’s Egg (Ingmar Bergman, USA/BRD 1977] was to be made in Germany, a sensible decision as it is set in Berlin in the 1920s. I went to Berlin to look for locations, but could not find nothing except a part of the city close to the Wall, called Kreuzberg, a ghost town where nothing had been repaired since the war. The façades were still pockmarked from grenades and spraying bullets. The ruins of bombed buildings had been removed, but there were empty sites like open infected sores between the grey blocks. The signs above the shops were in foreign language. Not a single native German lives in this part of what had once been a proud capital. Someone once said that a dwelling can be a dangerous weapon and I suddenly understood the point of this remark. The buildings were overflowing with people children playing on the courtyards, the garbage stinking in the heat. The streets were badly maintained, the asphalt inadequately patched. Weiterlesen