Do Right and Fear No One

A portrait of a womans life between 1915 and 1975 In Jutta Brückners documentary her mother looks back at the 60 years of her life talking about her fathers early accidental death the constraints faced by a lower middleclass family of five her training as a seamstress marriage to a bookkeeper committed to social democratic ideals the privations of war and not least of all her later realisation that fear may have caused her to miss opportunities An ingenious collage of picture and sound accompanies the mothers narrative a tapestry of proverbs pop songs marching music and the noise of war Hundreds of photographs most selected from August Sanders 18761964 project People of the 20th Century alongside newer photos by Abisag Tüllmann among others lend the individual vita of the directors mother a kind of ontological validity Images of labourers and office workers excursions and marches imbue what we hear with references that transcend the personal