Uma Cidade Sem Passado

The film is about a young woman in a small conservative community in southern Germany who decides to do some research into life during World War 2, and discovers that the version of events she has been brought up to believe is not backed up by the facts. A witty and biting satire on bourgeois hypocrisy and people's refusal (or unwillingness) to remember unpleasantness. To its credit the film is not didactic or one-sided and manages to make its point in a highly watchable but thought-provoking manner.

Michael Verhoeven has constructed a masterpiece in this glorious depiction of denial in a small German town. Through a unique style, Verhoeven takes a sensitive topic, the feelings of Germans as to their participation in WWII, and adds a glorious ironic humor to the story.

Lena Stoltz is glorious as Sonja, retaining her youthful charm and appeal throughout the film, from infancy to adulthood. Her apparent youthful innocence is what gives the movie much of its staying power in the minds of its viewers.

This movie is comedy, tragedy, documentary, and social commentary rolled into one glorious package.

I really liked this movie a lot. Apart from a very brief nude scene and some strong (but appropriate in this situation) language at the end, this is an excellent movie for anyone about age 12 and up. It concerns a very nice young lady who is beloved by her small Bavarian town--until she makes the mistake of looking into the town's dark past. It starts innocently enough, as she is trying to write a paper about the town's heroes who resisted the Nazis. However, no one in town seems willing to talk about this "glorious resistance" and the town's archives are closed to her. Only after making herself a pain in the butt by suing the town repeatedly does she get ahold of records that prove little, if any resistance to the Nazis. In fact, many of the most beloved townsmen in fact HELPED and actively supported the Nazis.

The movie has a very odd artistic style. While it doesn't really detract from the film, you should see it to understand what I am talking about--it's quite unusual at times.

What is so interesting and incredible about the movie was how everyone turned against her so quickly and violently. My only complaint was that it only talked about German reactions to their past. On a trip to Salzburg, Austria just a few years back, I noticed a beautiful monument to the Waffen SS (the group that manned the death squads and enacted the "final solution") prominently displayed in the town's cemetery! Yes, this was the SAME cemetery in which the Von Trapp family hid in the movie The Sound of Music! If you are there some day, see it for yourself. It would be nice if someone confronted the apparently more open acceptance of their Nazi past here as well.

A local girl decides to venture on a project dealing with the nasty history of her home town. This puts a few noses out of place and her on the bad books. The use of rear projection sets and other creative devices work in telling a political story in a cheeky manner.

Using Brecht's idea of Epic Theatre, Michael Verhoeven creates a stage upon which audiences can learn from the past, and critique such instances from World War Two and Nazi Germany through the main character Sonja's struggles.

Brecht wanted Epic Theatre to use history and let audiences apply it to the present. This type of theatre makes you aware that you are watching something staged, so that you analyze the situation rather then feeling the same emotions of the characters. Verhoeven does this very nicely using a few alienation effects (also know as vefremdungs effekt). One scene taking the walls down of Sonja's living room and having it float through town while people anonymously call and threaten her family. Here the idea of Foucault's panoptican (an instrument that can see everything) comes into play as well. Sonya has no anonymity from the public, which is made up of the church, the government, the media, and the fifth establishment (the elder generation that serve as a link from the past to the present), yet she cannot identify any of them specifically. Later on again in a different sequence, Verhoeven brings back the walls. It is here that Sonja learns some names she can use to defend herself, and the walls of defense are back. Bringing back the walls also helps alarm the audience, just in case they were becoming too comfortable without them.

Another part of the film is Sonja's family. In many scenes the children are seen crying and the father, Martin, tending to them and getting rather flustered. At one point he yells at Sonja telling her how her children would like their mother. Later on at the end of the film we learn that he has left her. Verhoeven plays on Sonja's obsession for finding the truth as a distraction from her family, yet there are parts where she still says she needs to stop, for the safety of her family because of threats. I think the scenes of neglecting the family are overdone to not show the point that Sonja is a bad mother, but that she wants her children to grow up and learn to love their Heimat (homeland), which during WWII was given a negative political term. She wants to make things better for her children so they don't grow up learning all of the corrupt things the her town has been covering up.

The Nasty Girl is a clever and great cinematic film that makes you think, rather then feel. As the viewer you walk away learning something.