I cried when I saw the most "hardcore" escape in the history of East Germany.

In p>1949, Germany was formally divided, and millions of East Germans who yearned for democracy and freedom fled to West Germany. Since then, although the high Berlin wall has prevented the East Germans from fleeing, there are still people who risk their lives to cross the border. They jump off buildings, swim, dig tunnels, and even hold planes hostage just to breathe free air. East Germans who tried their best to escape at that time. Among them, two families thought of an even more incredible way to escape-flying over the wall in a homemade hot air balloon! This sounds romantic with the Travels of Flying Houses, but it is a true story, and the process is even more thrilling, which can be called "the most magnificent escape in the history of East Germany". The film Balloon presents the true story of Peter Strelzyk and Günter Wetzel who fled to West Germany. German director Michael Herbig, after watching the Disney movie Stowaway adapted from this story when he was a child, decided to shoot this story himself one day and fought for the copyright many times before he got the current Balloon. It took the shooting team five years to reset the scene of the year and interview the prototype of the story more times, just to let the audience return to that tense time and space and feel the grandeur of escape. The prototype of the movie story. The opening of the film is a set of strong contrasts. On the one hand, children sing the beautiful songs of the motherland in the light, and on the other hand, soldiers shoot fugitives in the dark. Two sets of scenes appear alternately, suggesting the undercurrent of East German politics and the contradiction between East German people. Gunter and Peter are also celebrating the scene, but what they are thinking about is how to escape from East Germany, because they want their children to grow up in a free environment. There is a high probability of being shot from the ground, so they thought of crossing the border with a hot air balloon. Using limited resources and time, the two families made a 28-meter-high hot air balloon together. Everything is ready except the north wind. The weather forecast says there will be a strong north wind in the coming weekend, which is a good time for the hot air balloon to take off. But before departure, Mr. and Mrs. Gunter got cold feet, which shows the courage needed for this escape. The Peters fled at night as planned. After the hot air balloon was launched, because the fabric absorbed too much moisture and began to fall, and the gas froze and turned off, the huge balloon carrying the family's dream finally fell, only 2 meters away from the boundary line. Peter's family didn't want to be found by the soldiers at the border, so they had to run home in confusion at once. At dawn the next day, the soldiers found the hot air balloon in the Woods, and the secret police began to carpet-detect the escape case. If the plan is discovered, the Peter family will also be convicted of "treason", so they have to go to the American embassy for help. But they can't go to the Americans by phone or direct conversation, because there are secret police watching everywhere, and it is even more impossible to enter the embassy, otherwise they will be thoroughly investigated. In the end, I had to write down my situation and address, put it in a cigarette case and give it to Americans in secret. They thought it was a success, but they never waited for American help, and the atmosphere in the street became more and more tense. Don't want to sit still, Peter's family will make a second hot air balloon to escape. They still have to pull the Gunter family, because Gunter is an excellent tailor, and only he can sew the airbag. Although the escape is very thrilling, the choice of hot air balloon, which is "hard core" and full of fairy tales, really adds a romantic feeling to the whole incident. From secretly raising cloth, hand-drawing design drawings, sewing airbags with old sewing machines to simply welding metal hanging baskets, the two families struggled to make the largest hot air balloon in Europe at that time, which was very crazy and incredible. From take-off to landing, it took only 28 minutes to fly over the border, but there was a lack of power in front of the hot air balloon, and then there was a secret police chase. The whole process was tense and touching. At the same time, Balloon also made the atmosphere in East Germany very delicate. In addition to the contrast scenes in the opening, you will find that even though the people of East Germany know the tragic scene that happened at the border at night, they still maintain a calm life: children go to school as usual, adults go to work as scheduled, and the streets are peaceful. When you look closely, people always hesitate to talk, and their eyes often reveal the uneasiness of pretending to be calm. The monitored days are like walking on thin ice. Coincidentally, the neighbors of the protagonists are secret policemen, and they are usually friendly, but when the Peter family is thinking about fleeing all day, every word and look of the other party can make them flustered. In the streets and restaurants, every pair of eyes seems to be watching them. In order to protect themselves, people will keep their distance, full of indifference and distrust. There is one thing in the movie that is not directly explained. At that time, the agency responsible for chasing fugitives was "Stasi", which was the most efficient intelligence and secret police agency in human history, with more than 9, secret police officers and nearly 5, informants and secret agents. It can be said that one out of every three people in East Germany at that time was under the supervision of "Stasi", so it is conceivable that the protagonists were surrounded by crises. The more you are not free, the more you understand the value of freedom, and the more you try your best to get it. Give me liberty or give me death! We can't feel such determination, but through the real reappearance of the film, the audience will still be moved by their successful arrival in West Germany. These two families are indeed lucky, because according to statistics, from 1976 to 1988, 38, East Germans failed in their attempt to escape to West Germany, and at least 462 people died at the border. The Berlin Wall records the number of people who were killed each year when they tried to escape from East Germany to West Germany. You are free, and this is the territory of West Germany. In reality, after the hot air balloon landed, the two families waited in the hanging basket for 24 hours before they heard the soldiers who came to search and rescue say this sentence to them. This is a sentence that many fugitives look forward to most, and it is also a sentence that many fugitives failed to hear before they died. Life is precious, but love is more expensive. If you are free, you can throw both! Everyone has a different definition of "freedom". Some people may have been numb to freedom because of high walls, but these historical facts will always let us know that even if we are trapped, even if we are small, even if we are fragile, the soul of freedom cannot be imprisoned. They will eventually get rid of the shackles and fly with the wind like balloons.