Die Sünderin

For Hildergarde Knef this film is rewarding. She literally carries it on her shoulders, narrating both the past and the present and although this at times gets tiring on the viewer ( I saw it in German with French Subtitles ) it is worth tracking down. Set during and after WW2 it does show the degradation of a dysfunctional German family and she has to earn a living by working in a night club where eventually she meets the love of her life, a broken down painter. End of spoilers only to say the film is well made, deeply depressing at times and apart from Knef the acting is middling to reasonably good. As film it is romantic, and uses very rapid scenes and good use of images to tell its story. I think too much is crammed in, and with bad subtitles would be hard to follow. Fortunately mine were good in French, and I wondered what the X certificated copy in the UK must have been like. The BBFC does not tell us. I imagine heavily cut as various taboo issues of the time like assisted suicide and hints of nudity must have caused a stir with the censor. An almost incestuous relationship must have partly gone. It is a pity cuts are not recorded of films from the past. Historically they are of cinematic importance. But to return to Hildergarde Knef. An extraordinary woman and actor and the film gives her space and time to be onscreen all of the time. If she wasn't I must have blinked.

While this film created a furor upon release, not only for its frank treatment of social and sexual mores in Germany during and after WWII, but also for a modest nude scene, it may seem tame today. Nonetheless, there is a vibrancy here that prefigures Fassbinder and an interesting approach to narrative, voice over, montage and framing that is very modern and adds quite a lot to what is basically a conventional tear jerker that adheres to somewhat traditional Sturm und Drang/Romantic conventions. Well worth the effort to see.