Episode stands out first and foremost for its particularly elegant mise-en-scene. A stylistic grace that proves to be perfectly in line with a simple but at the same time courageous story, which immediately shows the far-sightedness of Walter Reisch himself. Volpi Cup for Paula Wessely at the 1935 Venice Film Festival.
Minderjärige klagen an, while partly retaining the original intentions of Harald Röbbeling’s excellent Asphalt (since it is in fact a much more softened reworking of it), is much weaker, much less incisive than the original and decidedly uncohesive, with a frame story that seems almost artificial, to the point of making it scarcely credible.
Asphalt takes its cue from some real-life stories and adopts a mise-en-scene that closely resembles Neorealism. And so, the result is a film divided into five episodes, incredibly rational in its irrationality. A film that openly speaks out against the war and – although the war has been over for many years now – points the finger directly at a hypocritical and conservative society.
In the ensemble film Viennese Girls, director, painter and photographer Kurt Steinwendner – so fascinated by Italian Neorealism that he was inspired by it in every way – draws a fresco of a hardly recovering Vienna after World War II, in which what seems most difficult is to make ends meet, due to the job insecurity that sadly combines with the inhuman conditions of the workers.