The Tin Drum

1979, 160min

Volker Schlöndorff retrospective

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A darkly comic war drama with magical realist elements, the film follows Oskar, a precocious child living in the Baltic enclave of Danzig (modern day Gdańsk), who wields seemingly preternatural abilities. He lives in contempt of the adults around him and witnesses firsthand their potential for cruelty, first via the rise of the Nazi Party and then the subsequent war. 

Adapted from the novel by Gunther Grasse, the film won the Palme D’Or at Cannes and the Foreign Language Oscar in 1979.

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