A GERMAN LIFE BEGINS with an extended series of close-ups of the ancient visage of Brunhilde Pomsel, the “German life” examined in the documentary by directors Christian Krönes, Olaf S. Müller, Roland Schrotthofer, and Florian Weigensamer. Eye-level profile shots of Pomsel's wizened cheeks and eyes (she was 103 at the time of filming) are set against extreme low angle shots of her chin and neck, at once sinewy and slumped with age. These images are intercut with a few shots of explanatory text that give us the basic outline of Pomsel's involvement with the infamous Joseph Goebbels, for whom Pomsel worked as a secretary until the very end of the Nazi era. The sequence is soundless except for the faint slight rasp of Pomsel's breath and the occasional licking of lips, acoustic reminders that we are being drawn into an almost painful degree of intimacy vis-à-vis the film's subject. A kind of hovering sensation results from the shot combination, as the viewer, guided by the intrusive camera and editing, circles around Pomsel at an improbably close range and waits for her to begin to speak. The result is an opening sequence with startling specular intensity that thrusts us into a position of alert and uncomfortable viewing.

The exaggerated proximity of the shots in this opening sequence not only fuels a feeling of standing much too close to a stranger, but also compels us to contemplate the markers of Pomsel's extreme age. This is augmented by the film's black-and-white scale, chiaroscuro lighting, and the minimalist staging, which places a simply-clad Pomsel against a solid black background that disappears, leaving her illuminated face as the only object for our contemplation. At least for the viewer with film-historical training, there is an inevitable association with the work of theorist Béla Balázs such as Der sichtbare Mensch (1924), in which he idealistically opined that the close-up had the particular capacity to reveal the essence of a person. Here, the close-ups seem to enlist us as detectives, encouraging us to read her face for the signs of who she was and who she is now.