Combat Girls

I'm certain this is going to be Germany's nominee for the Oscars.

The auteur, David Wnendt, seems to have collected a lot of true stories and pieced them together into a fast-paced, very violent, often harrowing and quite unpredictable plot.

Most of you don't know the East German neo-nazi scene. You'll ask yourself if this is really how these people live and talk. Believe me, it is. This movie is so close to reality it often feels like a documentary. I expected to sit in the cinema nitpicking, counting mistakes. I found just one. (A license plate with an "88" in it. The German license plate office doesn't allow that.) All the actors are unknowns and few of them get to shine. All the adults in this story are wooden and almost all the teenagers are idiots. Their main job is to convey total ignorance about the extent of their ignorance. They do that well. Jella Haase is very good.

But Alina Levshin is the one who's superstar material. This is her movie, and it will be remembered as her breakthrough. Two of the movie's most memorable scenes are long uncut closeups of her face, not speaking, and they're some of the best acting I've seen, ever.

Do see it. Just don't expect to sleep easily the night after.

Kriegerin/Combat Girls is the last film of a kind that has become one of Germany's finest exports. I am thinking of films like "Das Experiment" and "Die Welle" which, directly or indirectly, investigate what lies behind a dictatorship like Nazism and the dangers of falling into one again, which sometimes may seem far away. With this film, this time we are taken very close to the reality of a small (supposedly East) German town where far-right extremists rule the place and intimidate migrants. The point of view is entirely coincident with the main character, Marisa (award-winner Ukrainian-born Alina Levshin), who plays the passionate girlfriend of one of the gang's most violent and dangerous subjects. Her acting is amazing and, as already stated by another reviewer, it brings the film to a totally different level giving it the effectiveness of a documentary. The film is essentially about a girl who seems to know very well what she wants (to the extent that her whole body is covered in tattoos which are also political statements), while in fact some events will force her to reconsider not only her set of values, but also a relationship with a man whose deep love quickly turns into the deepest hate. On the background, there is a side story about Marisa's dying Nazi grandfather. She doesn't want to accept that he had been violent to her own wife before she was born, and that relates directly to the violence she in turn has chosen to surround herself with. A 15 years old seeking to be accepted into the gang is also dragged into this spiral of hate and violence - a consequence of her dominating father - until she understand what that really means. The third girl of the gang is always in the background, she's very passive and hardly talks and shows a melancholy which turns out to be a result of life's injustice. This is in my opinion the best German film since Gegen die Wand/Head On. Both educational and a piece of -literally- screaming art. A must see!

The topic of right wing extremists in Germany is a very hot one. The movie tries to stay as real as possible with its depiction of the characters it portrays and the world they are living in. It's not an easy watch and it especially isn't easy to play. Main actress does a fabulous job here.

The morality is clear and that is why the movie does not emphasize on certain things. You'll either like this approach or you'll think it's takes the matter too lightly. Whatever the case don't expect your usual mainstream approach. The movie will not resolve everything or not in a satisfying kind of way. The acting alone is worth watching it of course.

Even though many films have brilliantly shown the topic of neo- Nazism and its rise in contemporary society, Kriegerin ("Combat girls") focuses on the role of women in this environment. In the core of a strongly misogynistic ideology, women have to be twice as violent to impose themselves and find their own place. But it is not this exacerbate violence or hatred (even if it is realistic) that constitutes the strength of the movie, but the slowly change that takes place in Marisa thanks to an Afghan teen who she will help without really knowing why. Located in a cold economically fragile Germany, the boy will turn Marisa's life outside down. The symbolism of "a life lost is a life gained" is strong and the characters are colourful. The coup de grâce of the film comes from its poetry that is well-paced distilled and, between one aggression and another, manage to break through the film's cold colours, making it even more beautiful. Full review on our blog : https://losindiscretos.org/english/combat-girls-2011-david-wnendt

The film is not bad and conveys a clear message. It is authentic to a certain extent. Everyone who grew up in Germany knows the neo-Nazi scene, even if it is negligibly small and insignificant. However, the focus in the film is not on National Socialism, but rather on how one distorts one's view of the world through given circumstances and perhaps also wrong decisions in the youth. The plot could just as easily have taken place in the radical left scene or any radical religious scene. At the end of the film, you'll learn why the main character slipped into the right milieu. Often it is just bad luck, for example when your caregiver and role model comes up with the wrong ideas in your childhood. But sometimes it's just the rebellion against the parents, while meeting the wrong people at the wrong moment, as the younger Svenja portrays. In the end, Marisa finally managed to create her own view of the world. The question remains whether Svenja can do this too.