Die Meinung der Anderen / The Opinion of the Others

The Opinion of the Others / Die Meinung der Anderen. Experimental documentary series in six parts, plus intro. 85 min. Black & White. Germany. 2021

Director & Producer: Nadine Poulain. Más Media Production Kft.

With excepts from Parviz Amoghli’s book ‘Foam of Time. Ernst Jünger’s Forest Passage Today’. Read by the author

Audio Postproduction: Niklas Kammertöns. NEUTON BERLIN

Sonnenstudio Berlin

STILLS

SYNOPSIS

The film Die Meinung der Anderen / The Opinion of the Others is a reflection upon the polarization of the Western world. 

The thoughts are (still) free, but how free is the spoken word in the 20s of the 21st century? What does freedom of opinion mean in the age of political correctness, cancel culture and hate speech laws? How pluralistic and democratic is our so-called pluralistic democracy in reality? How liberal is the current liberalism? What remains from the spirit of Enlightenment when fear and guilt, instead of reason, are continuously spread, when critics are labeled deniers and racists and the emergency rule becomes (the new) normality? How can one understand the spectacle of the left against the right, or rather followers against critics of the mainstream? Who profits from this largely unproductive and increasingly aggressive tension, the so-called division of society?

The film The Opinion of the Others consists solely of words and a soundscape of paroles, tonal nuances, lectures and expressions of opinion. It aims to reflect upon the meaning of language as a basis for free thinking and an argumentative debate. Via the combination, arrangements, as well as overlappings of words, stereoptypes are opened up and challenged. When words are beginning to fail; when moralism, ideologies, censorship and increasingly violence are spreading, it not only becomes unfair, but also extremely dangerous. Therefore, the film is a pleading for a responsible dealing with language, as well as for the return to Roman law, one of the foundations of Western societies: ‘Audiatur et altera pars’ – ‘Let the other side be heard as well’.