A Film Canon

People On Sunday continues the sociological realism of Berlin: Symphony Of A Great City, but takes leisure, rather than working life, as its main preoccupation, depicting the semi-fictional exploits of five Berliners. As Siodmak and Ulmer's insistent demarcation of Sunday from the rest of the week might suggest, this effectively produces a new city, one turned inside out, such that the only point of continuity, or stability, is the urban-rural fringe, relentlessly mapped through a number of Lumiere-like episodes. Although these often occur at a conspicuous intersection of city and country, they more often focus on a microscosmic, residential fringe, detailing those broad expanses (gardens, parklands, sporting fields) where housing ceases. This infuses the city with the romanticism of the country - or, more accurately, construes that romanticism in terms of the urban gaze towards the country - explaining the extent to which trees are integrated into the streetscape. This all culminates with Siodmak and Ulmer's use of the river as a structuring device, detailing its various incarnations, from raw nature (recurrent shots of wind blowing through reeds and across water), to sites of leisure (swimming, paddleboating) to urban commodity (fountains, street hoses, swimming pools), infusing the film with a poetic, panning fluidity that condenses the country to an enticing breeze, settling into urban pores.