A Stroll to Syracuse: From Rostock’s Cold Shores to the Sicilian Sun – A Passion for Freedom and a Slow, Hesitant Escape
The year is 1982. In the city of Rostock, surrounded by the gloomy shores and fierce waves of East Germany, stands a waiter trapped in the suffocating confinement of borders: Paul Gompitz. He was neither allowed to study at university nor to travel to Syracuse, the southernmost tip of Sicily and the city of his dreams… Just like the legendary journey that writer Johann Gottfried Seume embarked upon in 1801, reaching that southern edge where Europe ends is his single desire. But when the regime’s barricades reject his travel request, Paul sets his sights on the dark waters of the Baltic Sea and begins preparing a secret escape plan that will take years.
Director Lars Jessen’s adaptation of F. C. Delius’s narrative of the same name (and the true story of Klaus Müller, who escaped East Germany in 1988), Spaziergang nach Syrakus, takes this grand passion for freedom as its central focus. Starring in the lead roles are Charly Hübner—who has become the on-screen symbol of East German characters—and his real-life wife, Lina Beckmann.
A Quiet Rhythm, a Selfishness Removed from Drama
While the camera brings to the screen what a person is willing to risk for freedom, unfortunately, the film’s tempo turns not into a thriller, but into an overly “cozy and leisurely” (bummelig) stroll. The high dramatic momentum and tension that a dangerous escape ought to hold melt away between logic gaps in the screenplay and the film’s quiet narration.
The story’s most jarring tone lies hidden at the character’s moral crossroads. Paul hiding his plans for years from his wife Anne, leaving her behind alone to face the harsh oppression of the regime, creates a deeply selfish figure rather than a passionate romantic pursuing freedom. Stretching from the city’s cold harbors to Italy’s warm shores, this cinematic journey leaves behind a bitter question on the screen: If one loses the love and home left behind while finding freedom far away, can that freedom truly be considered won?
