Based on Paul’s recommendation, on our last day in Telluride I went to the encore presentation of People on Sunday. Though I wholeheartedly agree with Paul’s endorsement of Sunday’s fully-modern depiction of courtship, I was equally taken with its utopian treatment of working class leisure. People on Sunday is as much a love letter to the proletariat as the films of the Bolshevik giants, but politics are ultimately pushed aside for a celebration of a pursuit of happiness that’s in some way about transcending social class. As a snapshot of the last wave of youthful abandonment before the Hitler era, it’s a heartbreaker.

Sunday takes several breaks from the flirt swirl of its four main protagonists to remind the viewer that their story is just one of hundreds taking place in Berlin’s parks and waterfronts on any given weekend. In shots reminiscent of Soviet cinema, workers begin their day-off by marching en masse to their chosen recreation locations. In a montage of photographs taken by a street portraitist, we see that Sunday leisure is not just for the young and pretty–even the old and haggard have smiles on their faces. For all, it’s the one day of the week to put daily drudgery aside and pursue personal dreams and desires. If the other six days are spent working to live, Sundays are not just restorative, but transformative: it’s the one day out of seven that the worker can devote to shaping his/her own identity.

The carefree benevolence of the film is all the more remarkable in light of what was going on in Berlin at the time. In May of 1929, the Social Democratic Party government forbid an annual May Day worker’s march. The Communist Party went through with their planned demonstrations anyway, and a riot ensued, with the SDP police firing over 10,000 rounds of ammunition into the crowds, killing 32 workers. This squabble eventually led to the rise of Adolf Hitler, as the SDP and the Communists were unable to form a strong coalition against the Nazis. Less than four years after the film was made, Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, and screenwriter Billy Wilder fled to Hollywood. His mother, grandmother and stepfather died at Auschwitz.

It was certainly jarring to run out of this bittersweet paen to fleeting pleasure, and straight into Margot At The Wedding. More on that later today.