Joachim Kunert’s Das zweite Gleis (US: The Second Track) is a stunner. With the backing of DEFA, the communist state-owned studio, Kunert and cinematographer Sohre craft astounding compositions, one after another, using low angles, deep focus (back and forth in a single shot), extreme closeups, Dutch angles, and crisscrosses of shadows and light at every opportunity, as if the crew were paying homage to the previous German generation’s expressionism. Such beauty is in distinct contrast to the film’s charmless setting and ugly subject: the Holocaust and its psychological aftermath. Having witnessed the theft of freight at the railroad yard where he works, Walter Brock (Albert Hetterle) neglects to mention that he recognizes one of the thieves as a former associate named Runge (Walter Richter-Reinick) for fear that such an announcement could resurface long buried secrets from his past. When a young man named Frank (Horst Jonischkan) begins courting Brock’s daughter Vera (Annekathrin Bürger) the next day, Brock suspects he’s connected to Runge and uses Vera to uncover the truth. Hetterle is effective at portraying emotional torment, and the film has several moving moments, particularly the young couple’s visit to a former concentration camp. Pavol Simai’s score is brilliantly chaotic, incorporating the screeches of plucked strings, odd percussion vibrations, an out-of-control harp, and industrial sounds that blend in with the soulless, postwar backdrop.