Myth, History, and Messianic Solidarity: Benjamin and the Matter of Politics in Petzold's Recent Trilogies

Abstract

Abstract This essay contends that the work of Walter Benjamin illuminates the political trajectory of Christian Petzold's recent cinema. Against critiques of the Berlin School as apolitical, it argues that Petzold's Systems and Elements trilogies engage contemporary concerns, including fascism and the climate crisis, in elliptical modes that draw on Benjamin's work on history and myth. It demonstrates how the Systems films practice a historical materialism of solidarity with the dead, while the Elements films examine the mythic order that ordains catastrophe. Relying especially upon Benjamin's Über den Begriff der Geschichte , Goethes Wahlverwandtschaften , and the Passagenwerk , the essay concludes that, rather than stage a confrontation with fascist political formations, Petzold's films practice a messianic solidarity that balances the tension of revelation and beauty.