Where Hands Touch

Someone suggested that all the low ratings from the professional critics and viewers here are the result of some kind of bias.

Seriously recoiling and critiquing lousy film making, so bad that the message is -- "I love Romeo the Nazi" -- is an expression of bias?

I think virtually all of us panning this film *want* to give it a high rating for the story it is attempting to tell. But the clichés, terrible scripting, absolutely abysmal acting do not do credit to the story of attitudes toward biracial children in Nazi Germany (or virtually anywhere in the world where they were mostly seen as genetic and social threats).

The bravery and resilience of the young woman simply do not come through at all. It was an opportunity to present her as superior in every way and instead the writers decided to overlay a sanguine and utterly not credible "Romeo and Juliet" nonsense over the story, obliterating the meaning and actual genuine drama.

We get no explanation, none at all as to why this brave young biracial girl would fall in love with a Nazi who shows no real trepidation at being part of the machinery that will kill Jews, a lot of other people, and destroy Europe.

FYI the young actress, Amandla Stenberg, is actually a good actress. Abby Cornish once again proves she has lucked into a couple of roles, but in general she is at best a mediocre to poor actress.

I'm not sure why so many people are giving this movie a bad wrap. The cinematography (though it could use a couple touches here and there) was great. The growth of the romance between Leyna and Lutz did seem a little rushed near the beginning, but when the realities of war and Nazi ideology really began to make its mark in their lives, things got especially interesting. The actors did an amazing job in portraying this too, and there were many emotional and passionate scenes that made me feel completely invested as if I were right there alongside them -something hard to get out of me. The way I see it, many people had a problem with this movie due to the setting. What many people don't seem to realize, is that this film is one of the few nowadays that doesn't completely distort the attitudes and beliefs of another time, and this is especially important when looking at a place like Nazi Germany. After World War I, Germany was completely destitute and caught in a bad financial situation of paying their debts to the Allies while continuously borrowing money from them to do so. Keep in mind, this was the war where just the sheer amount of men that had died, led to a dip in national population. All their fighting and death felt wasted to the Germans, and The Treaty of Versailles would certainly not help them any better. Their dignity and their country was so badly wounded by this, the people wanted to rebound from it, and while national pride or nationalism is not inherently bad in itself, the invasion and massacre of others is. It can't be ignored that many during this era held prejudiced beliefs, yet, unfortunately, most Germans were not aware of the extent to which blood was spilt out of discrimination. Most Germans only wanted to restore their country. In this film, these attitudes are very apparent, and although I do not agree with them, they shine light on the reality of what had happened. It showed the audience that there are shades of gray we often overlook, such as Leyna's situation of not only loving a Nazi, but being born a German of African descent in a European world. This movie is not one that takes away from history, but rather highlights the important pieces we often miss and does so wonderfully.

Why it has such a low score I do not know, I found it rivetting and very sad in parts to watch, but would say to anyone watch it, you will not be disappointed.

Agreed there are a plethora of riveting stories crying to be told about this period that should always be part of our memories and awareness as a generation of Holocaust and camp surivors leaves us. This is the first time I've seen anything address the struggles and experiences of bi-racial children in Germany at this time.

Theirs was a struggle to belong and reconcile their German identity with the atrocties in their personal and social world.

Stories like these are few and far between and when one see the ridiculous scores some have given this film it is no wonder. I agree with other reviewers that 'Sadly, I suspect this very departure from "the norm" is why this film is being unfairly downvoted'.

In a nutshell, there were many groups targeted under Nazi rule...we simply don't hear about them, short of some peripheral mention. And their attitudes and struggle for identity is worthy of understanding. I also commend Amana Asante for daring to tell this story, because within the black community (and others I'm sure) the backlash to this film has been fierce, which is precisely why we need more films like these that shatter the status quo. We are applauding you Amana and all of the wonderful team who worked on and acted in this quality film.

I'm so so disappointed about the reaction of many people here voting for this movie to have a result of 5.5/10... not about the filming, not about the actors or the make-up but before all of that thinks everybody need to know this kind of story wasn't fiction. We can't treat this movie like a science fiction movie or something "distracting" because it had happen 70 years ago, it was real, so many people had suffering that way. We need to remember to make that thinks never happen again. That movie need to be show on schools to teach how fascism work and show how point basic racism is stupid