The technical aspects of this unusual black and white film are perhaps as significant as its story. In order to tell a story set in Germany in the mid-1930s, the filmmaker chose to film it in black and white using a camera made in 1926 in order to recapture the look and feel of films actually made during that time. Archival footage from that period is seamlessly welded with new footage in the telling of this story of an innocent butcher's apprentice (Jost Gerstein) and the erosion of his innocence as he becomes increasingly involved in the world around him. This is a somewhat difficult film, and most of the story is told through the narration provided by Otto Sander.