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Jeden Monat nähern sich unsere Kolumnisten, die Berliner Filmemacher Dominik und Benjamin Reding, dem jeweiligen Heftthema
auf ihre ganz eigene Art und Weise. Geboren wurden die Zwillinge am 3. Ja nuar 1969 in Dortmund. Während Dominik Architektur
in Aachen und Film in Hamburg studierte, absolvierte Benjamin ein Schauspielstudium in Stuttgart. 1997 begann die Arbeit an ihrem
ersten gemeinsamen Kinofilm „Oi! Warning“. Seitdem arbeiten sie für Fernseh- und Kinofilmprojekte zusammen.

Each month our columnists, Berlin-based filmmakers Dominik and Benjamin Reding, approach the respective issue-specific theme
in their very personal way. The twins were born on January 3, 1969 in Dortmund. Whilst Dominik studied architecture in Aachen
and film in Hamburg, Benjamin graduated in acting studies in Stuttgart. They started working on their first joint motion picture “Oi!
Warning“ in 1997. Since then they have tightly collaborated for TV and cinema film projects.

O versized, partly freed from its old purpose and the constraints of statics, the ruin the sleepy twilight of the farmhouse pub. Swallows circled in front of the rugged ruined
stood. The gentle summer breeze blew softly past the columns that no longer façade, and I entered through the doorless entrance. The rectangular ballroom without
were meant to support anything, through the entrance gate that no one was likely to a floor or roof had long since become a wild garden. The warmth of the day and the
cross anymore. Lush herbs had long since grown in the cracks of the broken steps, peculiar smell of forest soil and damp masonry emanated from the here and there still
lizards dozed in the glassless window cavities, and the sun shone through the stone plastered, stuccoed brick walls. A green twilight lay over the rectangle, and something
rectangle, as if into the cella of a Doric temple, which had long since been robbed of that is inherent in all remote ruins, whether on Delos or Crete or in the Sauerland:
its protective roof. Nature had settled inside, replacing the splintered floor with a silence. Sublime, powerful, compelling. The silence of loneliness, the silence of laugh-
meadow, the stucco with ivy, the chandeliers with elderberry bushes, the coat racks ter that has faded away, of prayers that have fallen silent, the silence of a long farewell,
with robinia trees. Coat racks? Robinia? No olive trees, no cypresses, no oleander? No the silence of eternal night. Buildings are signs of life, vanished buildings are expres-
temple ruins surrounded by columns as in the ancient sites as we know them from sions of coming and going, natural, inevitable, but ruins are signs of failure. The failure
Segesta or Selinunte or Baalbek, no freshly excavated peristyle in Pompeii, no crum- of kingdoms, of love affairs, of political promises, of families and their longing for
bling mausoleum on the Via Appia? No, the ruins stood on the edge of the Sauerland, greatness and power, of the testaments of vanished religions, of daring ventures and
surrounded by cow pastures and cornfields. After a long hike in the depths of winter risk-taking enterprises. Ruins give no new use to the shell of decayed ideas, no new
– hungry and frozen, in the unpleasant driving snow at sub-zero temperatures – I came life in another form. Ruins are honest. I hurried through the green rectangle, got on my
across it. But not just it, but also a welcome inn next door. An old farmhouse, squat, bike and rode away quickly. I felt the empty windows like the eyes of the ruin on the
single-storey, roughly built of quarry stones, with a sedate gabled roof. The menu back of my neck, like their amused, knowing gaze: Wait, what of your time, wait, what
offered “beef ragout with croquettes” and “chicken soup with blocks of savoury cus- will remain of you? “Nothing, nothing, nothing,” the squeaking of the pedals seemed
tard”. I enjoyed the warmth, the leaded windows with beer advertisements, the steam- to answer with every turn. I was last there five years ago, but that’s not the only reason
ing soup and a cat sleeping soundly under the windowsill. Only I’m using the past tense. The ballroom ruins no longer exist.
when I left, reluctantly heading back into the cold and the Nor does the shady stable gable wall on the village street. Even
snow, did I discover the ruin as I hurried past. Wall to wall with the festival meadow, which had been undeveloped for 900
the restaurant, it towered into the dark grey winter sky, set years, is gone, as is the crooked craftsman’s cottage at the fork
back from the street by a front garden with chestnut trees. A in the road. A gleaming white new building with six owner-oc-
mighty, three-storey plaster façade, grey and cracked, in the cupied flats has taken its place, and two narrow detached
style of an “art nouveau-fantasy-renaissance”, probably built houses have replaced the chestnut-tree-canopied festival
around 1900. The windows and the entrance, ornate and mag- grounds, that green open-air ballroom. Of course, that’s the
nificent, led to nowhere. What could have made the building way of the world, the power of economics. What is no longer
behind it superfluous, what could have wiped it out? A war? A needed, what can no longer serve the glory of the ruling class
mer. It was a long, glorious summer, and I cycled to this place Foto: Benjamin Reding or increase profits, what can no longer bring the hoped-for sal-
strike of lightning? An all too careless extinguished open fire?
vation or protection, must go. That is how it has always been,
The cold drove me away at the time, but I returned in the sum-
and that is how it will always be. No reason for world-weari-
almost every day. Despite its proximity to the city, it had remained rural and peaceful, ness. But that is not all. Where the art nouveau ruins once stood, grass is growing;
untouched by the past. Its other “attractions” were similar: a sandstone-framed brick where the gable of the stable once rose, harmless weeds are sprouting. The accepted
wall that had once been the gable end of a stately barn and now, as a lonely remnant argument of economics, the compulsion to renew, does not apply here. Something
by the side of the road, provided shelter from the storms in autumn and cool shade in else, a different, deeper, more secret message of the ruins must have forced their dis-
summer; a proud, Biedermeier craftsman’s cottage at a fork in the road, abandoned appearance. Something that people do not like to hear, do not like to see, do not like
for years, with curtains fluttering behind broken window panes; and last but not least, to understand at all. A message about ageing with dignity, about hopes that have not
the village green, an open-air ballroom vaulted by mighty chestnut trees, surrounded been fulfilled; ... of existence that is too short, too real, and of eternity claimed in
by the land of the major local farmers and left undeveloped for 900 years, where the buildings; of ever new promises and the impossibility of keeping them; of things that
farmers’ sons and daughters celebrated their festivals and weddings together with the are greater, more indomitable, more unfulfillable than all the claims to happiness
villagers. “For a few years, the celebrations were luxurious and rainproof,” the inn- made by economics; a message about the inexplicability of time, that it will harbour
keeper told me when I returned to the ruins in the summer. “Those were good years.” its unsolvable mystery. “It was the building authority.” The old innkeeper says it – he
He sighed. “Then it was over.” “Then the war came,” I said, wanting to fill in the gaps still lives in the quarry-stone house that used to serve as a restaurant until a few years
in his story at haphazard. “No, then New Year’s Eve came. New Year’s Eve 1928.” ago. “It’s no longer considered to be sufficiently stable, they have to secure it or tear it
“What?!” “Yes, a big firework display in front of the ballroom. The biggest ever here. down, they said.” He sits on a bench in front of the squat stone house and strokes the
Unfortunately, the house caught fire.” The landlord sighed again. “And why wasn’t it grey cat. “Thank God the ruin wasn’t listed, so we could tear the old thing down.”
rebuilt?” The cat woke up and jumped onto his lap. “Oh well, it was initially supposed “Then you did the right thing.” I want to say it kindly, but my voice sounds shrill,
to be, but then the economic crisis hit, then the world war, and after that everyone angry. “Yes? Well, I don’t know. That old thing always reminded me that you have to
moved to the city. There was no business here anymore.” The innkeeper sighed again, make the most of your time, that you’re not here forever.” He smiles and coughs.
deeply, and drank a schnapps on the house. “And you? Would you like anything else? “Carpe diem, right?!” Then he grabs the cat and quickly disappears into the house. A
Dessert or a shot of schnapps?” Even the gentle evening sun outside was dazzling after rain shower drives them away, then me.

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