drwls

I rented this film because of an interest in German culture and history. I lived there for a while, and have a (former East-) German wife and relatives. My wife, who was 11 in 1945 when this film takes place, says that it was much worse then than the movie shows, particularly with regard to the utter devastation, starvation, and behavior of the Russian soldiers. Few women between ages of 13 and 50 escaped being raped, and most boys of her age and a bit older were taken away and never seen again. After reunification, the mass graves of many of them, killed by Russians, have been found. Her father, who was never a soldier or Nazi, was shipped off to slave labor in Kazakhstan for about ten years. In the movie, it is implied that the surrendering German soldiers were rewarded with extra food, and then sent home. Get real.

The intent of the movie, made in the GDR at a time when they were barraged with propaganda trying to make them believe that Russians were their friends, is obvious.

Nevertheless, I did enjoy watching it, because even propaganda can be interesting for what it is. (Example: Triumph of the Will, which is infinitely better than this movie). The events involving the surrender of Spandau prison to the 19 year old Russian "commandant", which may have been based on fact and the director's own experience, were of particular interest, and well dramatized.

I am a lover of Bergmann films, most of which I'd seen more than 20 years ago. This one got by me somehow, but because of all the glowing reviews I've read here and elsewhere, I decided to rent the DVD. It was a complete waste of time: pretentious, dull and hollow. The only part remotely interesting was when the nurse describes an erotic beach encounter with some voyeur boys. Flashbacks, apparent dreams, repeated scenes, unexplained images. None of it worked for me. About the only thing that held my interest was whether or not Liv Ullman would ever speak a line. The answer to even this question remained ambiguous.

This is the "Emperor's New Clothes" of all art films, as far as I am concerned. There is nothing there.

This a chance for males to fantasize while ogling Italian beauty Monica Belucci, and telling themselves they are seeing an "art movie". You will see very little of her acting ability in this movie. The two stars only talk to each other in the last minute of the film. It is a rather silly and routine male "coming of age" movie, and I found the preoccupation with penis size and masturbation in the first half of the movie to be tasteless and unfunny. The film is redeemed by its heartwarming ending, though the sudden acceptance of the heroine by the townspeople who had brutalized and gossiped about her during WW2 is a bit of a stretch.

Yes, she is beautiful, but I felt rather ashamed of myself for having sat through this.