Das schweigende Klassenzimmer

While most films regarding this period focus on spies, politicians, military, this one gives us a hindsight about ordinary people.

A little background info would be useful. The characters live in a city called Stalinstadt, which is on the Polish border, far from Berlin and the West German border, so in short a hard place if you want to escape. For a German public, it is obvious, but for an international audience, it lacks a litte introduction.

The best part of those German movies and series produced at Babelsberg studios (Ghost Writer, Silence, Babylon Berlin) is the aesthetics and design. The clothes, furniture, cars, every object seems to be carefully researched. I find the visual appeal sometimes better than the story itself.

About the plot, it is alright. I was surprised to see how free were East Germans before the building of the wall, since the secret police was in its early stages yet.

It is a true story, that is why it is so touching for us Hungarians to watch. To see how the world was informed about our revolution, and how it affected the lives of other peoples in the Eastern Bloc.

In 1956, in Hungary, we experienced being left alone. Now we learned from this movie that someone was with us. Thank you for your quiet stand, which was very loud compared to what was possible in the GDR at the time. And thanks to the filmmakers for telling it us.

How much does this matter to Hungary? - someone asks in the movie. Here is the answer: a lot.

It is a good movie about basic moral issues and solidarity.

This is an excellent movie about life on the wrong side of the Iron curtain. It depicts the terror and oppression by the ruling communist party on anyone not conforming to its political line. Literally everyone. The plot is scarily familiar to anyone born in the the former Eastern bloc before 1980.

This is a nice and well done movie about a class that defied their teachers but more importantly, even if they didn't know it the tyranny of their goverment. It is more than decent and even if you may not always feel entirely convinced by the acting (I think it's way above average here and very good for a german cinema release to say the least), the movie has a (real life) story to tell.

You may not have been aware of this, and to be truthful neither were the pupils in this. Some things feel forced and some incidents may feel a bit over dramatized, but they work in the story that unfolds. Also the characters are really nicely drawn. There are quite a few emotional moments and quite a few were you may feel helpless too ... it really is about being involved, if you let the movie do that to you, you are in for an experience

What a beautiful and impressive movie about the courageous boys and girls of a school in East Berlin in 1956