Berlin, été 42

I found this a really riving watch. I have a history with radical movements, and I found a lot of similarities in terms of the way the group dynamics played out with the resistance members. What was really surprising is the tactful way that the 'ordinary life' of many of the average or upper-middle class Germans faced, with the exception of the war hanging over everybody's head.

The portrayal of some of the more sympathetic members of the German state apparatus was really well done as well. They respected a number of her wishes (despite initially bleating out that things were just 'the rules'), and responded well to the perfectly reasonable requests of the characters.

The ending was jarring in a good way, and left me sat in my seat in the cinema even after the credits had finished. Very moving and inspiring, despite being considered 'not a date night film' by the people sat behind me.

While at it's core another traditional basic biographical structure, director Andreas Dresen does a solid work on presenting the relationship and history of the two character of Hilde and Hans Coppi with two strong lead performances from the cast and including some solid direction choices.

Stories about anti-Nazi and the war period has been done many times and Dresen offers at times some good direction and atmosphere approaches. Regarding it's writing being predictable and nothing too special when it comes to context, history and development, especially character development, the strong performances, solid camerawork and certain dialogue moments remain ambitious.

It feels heartless to be critical of such a well-meaning film. This is, after all, a tale of the heroism and sacrifice of real people. Oppressed by the tyrannical Nazi regime, the small group at the centre of 'From Hilde, with Love' fought back as best they could, accepted the risk and faced the consequences.

The problem with the film is, simply, that there is no sense of menace. The apparatus of the Nazi regime is largely absent until Hilde and her group are arrested. It does not breathe down their necks. It hardly appears to be interested in them.

As a result their plotting, organising and minor acts of civil disobedience have an inconsequential, undergraduate air. The atmosphere feels more like early-1960s Sweden than wartime Nazi Germany. You half expect them to break off their activities on behalf of the Soviet Union to compose a message of solidarity with their brothers and sisters in Nicaragua.

Under arrest, Hilde is shouted at. The food isn't good. The conditions are Dickensian. She has a baby and manages to keep him alive, assisted by increasingly humane prison staff. Little sense of menace intrudes. The likely sentence for Hilde's offence is not a threat but a fact, arrived at by a form of due process.

The film closes on a poignant note provided by Hilde's son. It is as effective a reminder of the bravery of these young people as anything else in the film.

The film tells a story of a group of young, reasonably well off and naive people, who fought the NAZI by trying to help USSR. However, as said by Hilde's son Hans, a German historian, after the war, many Nazi officers who participated in the torture and killing of those fighters were never prosecuted but joined the West German military, while his parents and other continued to be treated as traitors till 2008. That makes you wonder whether they were heroes fighting for freedom, or victims in the geopolitical conflicts played by the people in power.

In the film, all of the people in Nazi machines, the secret police , the prison guards, the hospital staff, the judges, were humane, kind and sympathetic. I am not sure how well this reflects the historical truth. Prison systems across the world were cruel in those days. Was Hilde just lucky to be treated humanely, or was it the filmmaker's desire of not hurting this beautiful soul, on the big screen?

Looking at the conflicts today that are killing so many people in the name of glorious goals, I wonder whether humans are really capable of learning. This film tells such a story that makes some of us think and see the wars differently.

Who would expect a film set in 1942 Nazi Germany about a group of resistance fighters to be cheerful? But this film, based on true events, is compelling if at times confronting. Hilde is a young, pregnant woman who with her husband is caught with an illegal radio transmitter and is eventually sentenced to death. Through flashbacks the film tells the story of the couple meeting and the attempts at resistance they and their friends undertake. Oddly, these flashbacks do move around in time, mostly but not always moving further back, but it's always clear where the viewer is. Once caught, Hilde's prison experience is at times confronting, but I really appreciated that most of the prison staff are not presented one dimensionally but with touches of humanity as well. As noted in the details in IMDB, the film concludes with a few words from her son, born in prison and now 80. Overall, the acting, the cinematography and the editing are properly subservient to the storytelling so that only in retrospect does one realise how effective they are.