User Reviews

"Signs of Life" or "Lebenszeichen" is a new German movie from 2017, actually a co-production with the United States I see and check out the title of my review to read what this is about. I would not really say that this brings anything new to the table in slightly under 1.5 hours, but it was an interesting watch nonetheless. The focus is on several Jews living in Berlin and the impact that their religion has on their life these days. Most of the participants are already from an older generation. Decay and maybe even death are a subject here that is frequent from start to finish. Actually these parts about the man with dementia trying to keep going with his daily routine or the old woman and her instructor/coach is what you could call him could really also have been about non-Jews and it would not have made any difference whatsoever. But I still think it's good they were included because if we talk about Jewery, then there is to me instantly a reference about how their legacy dies with them, especially if it is those who survobved the Nazi days back then, maybe even were prisoners at a concentration camp, so it's good films like these are made in order to keep the history and memories alive for our current generation and for those to come. Admittedly, this is far from the key subject here though. There is more focus on the now really pretty much most of the time. The dinner and preparation was nice closeure at the very end, but apart from this, the woman was the interviewee who did the least for me really. Instead I quite liked the old Jewish couple who kept cleaning the statue that reflects their history and as a Berlin citizen I am actually curious to see where it is exactly. And how hopefully there's not a great deal of dirt on it / garbage around it. And there's other segments that I enjoyed quite a bit. Then again, which parts you will find the most charming, maybe the most insightful is entirely subjective and that is perfectly fine this way. Also it would be interesting to see how others perceive the reference to the "Arbeit macht frei" gate that admittedly I did not see that much, but with the filmmaker's (Alexa Karolinski's) own background, I can see where she comes from. If it feels significant enough though to be included in the film is debatable. In any case with this being only the second feature film by Karolinski (also the second about Jews), I think she does a fine job here all in all and this is certainly among the better (German) documentaries from recent months, maybe years even. If you liked it, I also recommend the (in my opinion superior) recent documentary on the Jewesh cemetery in Berlin Weißensee, a good pick for a double feature too if you can stomach the heavy material. So this one here gets a thumbs-up from me and I think you can check it out if the subject is one that suits you. It still offers interesting insights despite how many films (also non-documentaries) on the subject already exist.