Les trois vies de Rita Vogt

This is the type of film that I wish were made more often. Volker Schlondorff reminds us that he's still a terrific director and really has gone back to his roots with this film. Rita is presented as a terrorist. Then seems to have left the revolution for another life and hope her past doesn't catch up. Were not suppose to feel pity or hatred towards this woman. Just watch and experience a fascinating character that is presented and not judge her morals. Hollywood would have ruined this film by making Rita sympathetic. Bibiana Beglau plays Rita and she is absolutely magnificent. Strong, smart and opinionated. But she's also vulnerable so her character is very interesting to watch. Beglau has a real presence on film and the strength of her personality shows throughout this film. I cannot wait to see her again in another film. Schlondorff's film and its portrayal of Rita is unflinching. The last scene in the film comes suddenly and leave's a haunting image in our psyche. The song that plays as the film ends I found to be very affecting and helps create an indelible aura for the film. Very strong film by a great director and acted by a great talent in Beglau.

This is not the strongest film by Schlondorff, but it is very entertaining nonetheless. Rita is a woman of a thousand disguises: some adopted for her terrorist roles in the West, some given to her by her Stasi handler in the East, and some adopted to cope with the jarring dissonances that people experienced under Communism.

The time is never right for Rita. She is told that since the DDR is about to sign a pact against terrorism, she and her comrades are excess baggage. When her boyfriend announces he's going to the USSR to work, she has to tell him she can't go with him, as she'd be unsafe there. Plane tickets to Beirut are offered to them: Rita refuses but Andreas and the others go (anything to get away from the socialist nightmare). Rita's refusal saves her life, of course.

I found the moral questions that a politically engaged citizen of either of the former two Germanies had to face were brought out better in The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, but Rita has many lovely moments.

this film is about a fact discovered after the changes of 1989, namely that the remaining unfound RAF terrorists have been hidden in the DDR.

Schlöndorff has considered many details very well. although he never tells the "true" story i could tell most of the time which historic fact he had in mind, and i remembered many things i myself had read in the newspapers at the time these events had been in the news. the only thing i am not sure about is wether the west actually did know all the time. sounds a bit like conspiracy. maybe "we" did and wanted to avoid "trouble", as so often. the ending is very stupid and easy, like often in Schlöndorff-films, i regret to say. so i was a bit angry when i walked out the cinema. but still i think every German interested in his country's history (and i believe it is the duty of Germans to interested in it!) should watch this movie in order to also consider this last "east"-chapter of RAF terrorism. the last "west"-chapter was the dissolution of the AIZ and Bad Hersfeld. my recommended reading is: Der Baader-Meinhof-Komplex by Stefan Aust.

The Legend of Rita is about the lives of some young terrorists from West Germany who dreamed of making radical changes in the lives of people using violent means. It describes the tumultuous lives of these people especially their stay in East Germany by focusing on a particular person who is the film's protagonist. Although the film's pace is fast, it fails to do much justice to the topic it intended to portray. As events in the life of a terrorist are shown in a rapid succession without bothering to concentrate on one particular aspect, 'The Legend of Rita' takes the form of an entertainer as it distances itself too much from the radical stance viewed in hardcore political films. It appears that the director Volker Schlöndorff has sweetened his film to such a large extent that even East German secret service agents appear as if they were some kind of nice gentlemen with nothing but loads of goodness in their hearts. As a festival film, 'The legend of Rita' won some important prizes namely silver bear and best actress price shared by Bibiana Beglau and Nadja Uhl during Berlinale 2000. Finally, it is a nice film which can be watched with family and friends.

'the legend of rita' is an unfortunately choice of title when compared to the German 'die stille nach dem schuss'. The film is about how members of small armed revolutionary groups come to terms with what remains of their lives ('die stille') between/after periods of action ('dem Schuss'), not principally about one person, let alone their 'legend', even if there is only one character who is continually present.

Since the group in question hides out for a period in the ddr, a number of occasions arise in which the politics of armed guerillas and that of the ddr are compared, and both appear a long way off the kind of broad participatory socialism they are often mistakenly taken to aspire to. The exchanges between the main stasi officer and rita about the role of violence and the state are particularly priceless.