Courtesy of ITV Global Entertainment Ltd

Rank's Look at Life series ran in Odeon cinemas from 1959 to 1968, offering a glossy summary of a new topic each week. It was styled as a 'cine-magazine', and the comparison with a print magazine is quite apt, with both forms often emphasising attractive colour images over journalistic intent. So it is perhaps unsurprising that this travelogue visit to Berlin in the midst of the Cold War is often little more than a curious peek through a gap in the Iron Curtain. The Divided City was made during a moment of building tension between East and West that would result in the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, effectively closing the door to the refugees seen at the end of the film. Though the film is theoretically apolitical, it is noticeable that the section on West Berlin focuses on abundant commerce and leisure, while in East Berlin the emphasis is placed on ruins, Germany's Nazi past and Soviet propaganda.

Jez Stewart

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