Zeit zu leben und Zeit zu sterben

The films of Douglas Sirk have been variously described as "masterpieces" and "tosh". I think the answer lies somewhere in between. Certainly the series he made at the peak of his career for Universal International in the 'fifties are romantic melodramas of a superior kind. Although photographed in gaudy chocolate-box colours with soundtracks overladen with scores drenched in aural syrup and with sometimes the most outlandish of plots - "Magnificant Obsession" for instance - they have, beneath their surface glitter, a hard edged observation of an affluent American society struggling to come to grips with moral values - "All that Heaven Allows" and "Imitation of Life" are particularly good examples. But, interesting as these film are, it is the odd man out, a film set not in America at all but in Germany and the eastern front in the closing stages of the Second World War, "A Time to Love and a Time to Die", that, in spite of its not inconsiderable unevenness, could well be his most lasting legacy. Its most striking feature is that, notwithstanding its vastly different territory, it remains a Sirk film stylistically. The director almost seems to be signing his signature with the shot of pink blossom against the opening and closing credits. Although the outer sections of a German unit under shellfire on the eastern front are the very stuff of warscape recreation at their near best, it is the long central passage where the young German soldier - surprisingly well played by John Gavin - returns on leave to his heavily bombed town, that is the most Sirkian. Here, between devastating airaids, the hero forms an idyllic romantic attachment to a vaguely remembered friend from childhood followed by a whirlwind courtship. Amazingly for the last night of his leave the couple find, amidst all the devastation, an untouched house for the consumation of their marriage, where they are tended by a kindly frau who brings them a bottle of wine from the cellar. At this point the airaid is only glimpsed through the window. At an earlier point in the leave the couple dine in an unbelievably stylish restaurant, although here at least Sirk has the honesty to interrupt the proceedings with a pretty devastating direct hit which leaves one diner running is a sea of flames. If I have reservations about some of the romantic trappings of the scenes in Germany, I have none about the intense realism of the scenes on the eastern front. Would that the film was all on this level.

...in this time of generalizations and terminally low attention spans (not to say inexistent historical memory) people who have been the hollywoodesque cartoonish image of all 1930/40s Germans to be goose-stepping-order-barking-black-uniformed-ss-genocidal-murders could have their insight skills sharpened a bit more by this movie directed by Detlef Sierck (his real name). Actually lots of people in the 3rd Reich must have felt like Sierck himself, who obviously loved his fatherland but hated the Nazis and the way they tried to rape and pervert the very idea of the 'german nation' to their twisted ends...and those who were not lucky enough to expatriate like he did would have lived like the protagonists of this drama, suffering through an unwanted war having to witness both the cruelty of the regime AND the devastations from the war that the regime forced upon its people (the political prisoners forced to clear rubble from the air raids is a TELLING scene indeed!). The only thing that upset me a bit was the censorship forced on the filmmaker which in several scenes has to resort to silly 'visual tricks' to 'avoid' showing swastikas (a tube blocking our sight over the Military Police gorget in one of the first scenes, the queer angle at which a NSDAP member crosses our p.o.v. in the restaurant scene so we can't see the front of his armband)....now think a bit...if a catastrophe strikes and leaves this movie the ONLY proof of semi-historical value regarding WW2 the historians of the future will be oblivious of the centrepiece of nazi imagery...how STUPID is that???

Down with censorship I say, either sexual, political, intellectual et al...

While not liking every film Douglas Sirk did (my recent viewing of 'Magnificent Obsession' for example really underwhelmed me, sorry to anybody who disagrees and they undoubtedly exist), he was an interesting director and one of the most interesting when it came to melodramas which he specialised in. His melodramas are not for all tastes definitely, with some working much better than others, but at his best (i.e. 'Imitation of Life') his films were brilliant.

'A Time to Love and a Time to Die', a title that some people are going to love and others are going to hate (even if it is an over-the-top one it is generally a poetic one in my view and pretty much sums up what the film is about), may not be one of Sirk's best. Having said that, while it is not perfect by any stretch, it is one of his most interesting with the subject matter for example and also one of his most underrated and deserving of more credit than it does.

It isn't without problems in my view. It does run a little too long and it makes the film occasionally drawn out, the romance occasionally slows things down a bit. Some of the dialogue is rather soapy and could have had more punch, at least it is not as unintentionally camp or as sentiment-heavy as some of Sirk's other films.

Did feel generally that debuting John Gavin, once you try to get over the fact that he is not remotely believable as a German, didn't do too badly a job, but inexperience does show initially where he doesn't always look comfortable.

Mostly he plays his role with authority and pathos and Liselotte Pulver is both fetching and affecting as his love interest. Their chemistry is charming. Keenan Wynn and Charles Regnier are memorable in support, the whole cast in fact give everything they've got and make characters that sound on paper cliched and potentially sketchy interesting and certainly more plausible than those in other Sirk films, the conflict having tension too. 'A Time to Love and a Time to Die' looks great and is especially lavishly and not too glossily shot. Miklos Rozsa's score is sweeping and haunting.

Sirk's direction has the sensitivity and passion that was missing in 'Magnificent Obsession' and the war scenes are staged very powerfully without being cluttered. While the script is not perfect it is sincere on the whole and as said it is not camp and sentimental. Furthermore, 'A Time to Love and a Time to Die' is an emotionally powerful film without being manipulative or over-sentimentalised, the war scenes are harrowing and poignant. The ending is shocking and really did appreciate that it didn't go the too pat route like other Sirk films did.

Overall, interesting and powerful film that deserves more credit than it does. 7/10

This film complements "The Downfall" in putting a human face on the Germans who fought during WWII and the suffering of the people of Dresden during the allied bombing, but it beat the "Downfall" by 47 years!! The problem is that Sirk is a highly underrated director because he shot mostly "melodramas" in the 1950's America, starring the likes of Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman (who was Ronald Reagan's wife at the time!!), so his German films are not even known in America. This is one of them. It's an important film that speaks for the simple people, the common people of Germany, who also suffered on the German side. And the writing credits are not bad, including Erich Maria Remarque who wrote "All Quiet on the Western Front." This film and "The Downfall" should be seen along with "The Fog of War" in which Robert McNamara, who was Secretary of Defense during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations and the Vietnam War, confesses that if the Germans and the Japanese had won the war, he and his superiors would have been tried for war crimes for ordering the fire bombing of both Dresden and Tokyo during the war. War is hell and everyone --bar none-- on all sides has committed atrocities. McNamara, at 87, has the courage to admit that: "Sometimes you have to do evil to do good," as he put it. "The victor writes history..." he added. Films like "A Time to Love and a Time to Die" and "The Downfall" add a bit of revisionary touch to the cracks in that history...

I'm not one to watch really any film that seems to have romance in it set during war. However, the first time I watched this movie, I was really amazed at how well it was done as well as the most excellent cast for a movie and the realism that it showed. Also, I do not care for films with much romancing in it however, I liked this film and how the romance between a German Soldier and some Fraulein; was shown.

Young German soldier returns to a devastated hometown on leave from the Eastern Front. First he tries to locate his family after discovering their home was destroyed on some bombing raid. Whilst looking for family, he runs into an old professor of his as well as his daughter. During his time on leave, he falls in love with this girl and they eventually get married. Also, the professor had been arrested for some reason and was shucked away to some interrogation center - which really was a Concentration Camp. Sometime later in the movie, this soldier discovers the professors fate.

During his leave, this soldier befriends and teams up with another soldier--who is also looking for a loved one. Don DeFore excellently plays that soldier. Also in the film in memorable roles include: Keenan Wynn as a rich German Corporal, Jock Mahoney as Steinbrenner, a "crack" machine-gunner who is in Gavin's (Graebers) platoon, as well as a very young Dana "Jim" Hutton, as a young German soldier in Graebers platoon.

I do not want to spoil what happens at the end of this movie but will say that Graeber gets sent back to his platoon somewhere on the Eastern Front.

This movie is so good that it really deserves to be released on DVD. It is in color and the sound is excellent.