Westen

An atmosphere of cold fear moves across the border of East Berlin as a mother and her child flee to West Germany in search of freedom: The present day film is set in 1978. ( -The film though, will open to a fleeting and touching reference to a happier scene with husband, wife and child -3 years earlier. )

In 1978, the process of Western citizenship will take 12 days of rubber stamping of authorization as the mother and her child are interned into a community camp for refuges.

From the unrestricted freedom of the Western camp, the mother attends interviews with the American immigration officers, while her child attends the community school. Two Immigration officers quiz the mother to establish why she chose to escape from East Germany - but all is not clear in her reasoning as we learn to discover that her husband may have died in an uncertain death?

This is a beautiful film that draws interest of storytelling in episodes - one with an Immigration Officer; another with a fellow interned refuge; and then of course - with her child, and then again with the daily life of the community camp - until her application has been completed.

A beautiful film indeed, along with lovely warm and cold tones of colours that alternatively reflect moments of liberation, and of fear: Paranoia will underline the tone of the film. The filming itself is remarkable and fresh; subtle, but in sharpness, sometimes in angled shots of street level in autumnal season.

I love this film to its attention to cinematic detail - the bright and low lighting - the tones of the colours - it is a great artistic achievement by film director, Christian Schwochow. The acting is not stilted, nor is it unnatural to the uneasy atmosphere of apprehension: It is as though freedom itself cannot be defined between the East and the West (- the West which seems to mirror the Soviet East?)

Again, an absorbing film, but with highly charged outbreaks of emotion from repressive souls: Only the mother will understand how to seek happiness in the true sense of freedom of liberation?

An outstanding film of which I highly recommend and enjoyed, and a terrific performance by Jordis Triebel -the film later reminded me of a classic film entitled,' Fear Eats The Soul.' The film ends with a very upbeat jazz score by Marion Black -entitled, 'Who Knows?' ( cert.15 )

I tried to like this film but could never get into it, the plot is unbelievable, at it rests on Nelly's character, that changes her mind and follows a logic of her own.

Art direction is good, and actors do what they can with a story full of clichés, from the sexy "damsel in distress" to the bullied son, the love affair that makes no sense and ends as abruptly as it started, the friend who is always there and is taken for granted, the cool and also pretty neighbour who plays Bach but is reduced to being a cook and mistreated at it, her father who is a bit nuts but not really dangerous so we have to like him too, the ugly STASI female doctors, dumb looking officials- funny looking clothing-, menacing everything for we are supposed to empathize with Nelly who is being driven crazy by the German bureaucratic system.

Sorry, it didn't work for me.

Some people left at the showing here in BA, and I do understand it. The ending was a monument for cheesiness.

The movie pretends to make us feel empathy x Nelly while using many Hollywood tricks like "mom-son having a good time", "Christmas making characters take the big decision", "overqualified Eastern Germans being reduced to menial jobs because of ...?", and the list could go on. Maybe I expected a good European film but got an average TV movie that looks like those manufactured for Hallmark channel and the like, only this was spoken in German.

I do hope other people can see nicer things in this film, I sincerely couldn't. I wouldn't watch it.

A drama about a mother and son who manage to emigrate from East Germany to West Germany during the era of the Cold War. The transition is complicated by the ongoing requirements of the immigration centre in order to obtain West German citizenship. Further complications arise as her son's father, who they believed dead from an accident in the Soviet Union, is suspected by Western secret services of being alive and having been a Stasi agent. The mother moves inexorably towards paranoia as she becomes unsure of who she can actually trust.

The film captures the atmosphere of the period through incidents, detail and setting. However, at times the film appears a little too concerned with appealing to a potentially broad audience through intrigue, romance and melodrama; understandable but perhaps occasionally unfortunate.

As it's name suggests, Christian Schwochow's 'West' is a film about the West, but also the East: specifically, about cold-war Germany. Its central protagonist, wonderfully played by the beautiful Joerdis Triebel, is a somewhat arrogant east German who, on crossing the iron curtain, struggles to cope with the demands made of an unconnected immigrant in a strange country; but who also struggles with the legacy of her past. The film neither glosses over the evils of the eastern regime, nor suggests that life in the west is a simple panacea; above all else, it demonstrates the fatal way that police states damage the institution of trust in a way that cannot easily be repaired. The ambiguous figure of a rumoured informer provides a focus for a powerful story that is ultimately more about people than systems.

In 1975 Nelly's husband left her for a business trip – he never came back from Russia. We pick up the story three years later when she and her young son Alexej are given permission by the DDR – German Democratic Republic - to emigrate to the West. Original title of this German film is 'Westen' and it is in both German and English with good sub titles).

Once she gets to the 'Promised Land' she discovers that things are not as rosy as she had been informed. This is her story. There is a lot more to it than above and it is timely for a release at the moment to show how attitudes were then to refuges and how, sadly, little has really changed.

The period detail is excellent; the acting is great with Jördis Triebel as Nelly doing a performance that will guarantee future work offers. The issues that are dealt with are done in a way to show the human cost of prejudicial and judgmental attitudes, but there is a lot of love here too. This is one of those films that when it is over it will leave you wanting more – an easy one to recommend.