It would seem that UK
audiences for German stories (films) have been more commonly drawn to political
fare. The Communist era in East Berlin, in particular, has given rise to Good
Bye Lenin (2003), The Lives of Others (2007) and now the 1980’s set Barbara
(2012).[1]
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| Barbara Wolff. |
All those that take up the ‘host’ mantle for the Robert
Burns Centre Film Theatre Film Club are enthusiastic cineaste and always do
their best to make each Monday evening rather special. This week we were
fortunate to have a host who has great background knowledge of Germany and
especially Berlin. Thanks to Tony
Barbour our enjoyment of Barbara (2012) was greatly enhanced,
not only did he give a well informed introduction but returned after the coffee
break to enthral us with tales of his life and travels in Berlin before and
after the Wall. Its evenings like this that really makes the RBC Film Club
worthwhile.
Barbara Wolff’s story
is of a woman torn between her Hippocratic oath and an intolerable autocratic
regime. Set in the German Democratic Republic in the early 1980’s it involves a
young doctor who has been exiled to an unnamed backwater to work in the local
hospital. Her crime is that she applied for an exit visa so she could leave
East Germany to join her West German lover. Living under constant surveillance
from Stasi officer Klaus Schutz she appears as being aloof and wary but in
truth she has no idea who she can trust. Even the head doctor, Andre Reiser,
who its obvious has feeling for her; she is unable to confide in. The only
person she does bond with is a teenage patient called Stella who has escaped
from a local socialist work camp and is suffering from meningitis and who, it
is discovered, is pregnant.
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| Barbara with Andre Reiser |
Directed and written by German film director Christian
Petzold, this his first period drama won him the Silver Bear for Best Director
at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival and has been chosen as the German entry for
the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the Academy Awards in February 2013. The
film stars Nina Hoss who has previously worked with the director on five other
occasions including Yella (2007) for
which she won the Berlin Silver Bear for Best Actress, Rainer Block as Klaus
Schutz a German actor you will probably know from Inglourious Basterds (2009) and as the doctor in Haneke’s White Ribbon (2009) with Ronald
Zehrfeld, who was brought up in East Berlin, playing Andre.
This film is an example of how good modern German cinema can
be. It’s a very sad and moving film helped by the intensity of Hoss’s brilliant
portrayal of a character that can hide her feeling from all those around her
but not the cinema audience and Petzold’s underplayed direction. The highlight for me is the beautifully
constructed final scene between Hoss and Zehrfeld where simple facial movements
tell you all you need to know. The film is totally realistic and it’s period
feel, using soft colours and natural sounds, totally authentic. This is a movie
where the fear of living under the treat of a ‘knock on the door’ is undoubtedly
convincing.
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