Anonyma – A Woman in Berlin (Eine Frau in Berlin)

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The director Max Färberböck has taken the real diary of Anonyma – Eine Frau in Berlin and made it into a quite impressive film.

It deals with the last days of the Second World War in 1945. The Red Army has invaded Berlin and is now waiting for the end of the war. Most men of the city have gone away to fight for Germany, so who’s left are the women.

The film is about their horrible fate: being raped (over and over again) by the Russian soldiers. Anonyma is one of these women. Before this time she was a journalist, living with her husband in Berlin. Now she is staying with a few others in an apartment house where the women are regularly being raped. She decides to take charge of her life and goes to the highest Russian commander she can find to beg for help. Even though he is reluctant at first, he starts coming to the flat that Anonyma is sharing with others and becomes her lover – therefore giving her security and bringing food for the people in the flat.

A lot of German films deal with World War II but this one has a completely new perspective. The women who got raped during that time have not often shared their experiences with  others and therefore there are not many recorded stories. When I went to see the movie, the director Max Färberböck was present and talked about how hard it was to get information about the women at the time. Even today very few were willing to talk about it.

What I liked about the film was that neither the Germans nor the Russians are the ‘bad guys’. The film is a documentation of what happened, it is not judging either side. Nina Hoss (Anonyma) and the other women are great in the film but the ones who really impressed me most were the Russian actors. Especially the main Russian commander was absolutely believable.

It is a very well made film. I absolutely recommend it. The story is well told, the actors are great, the costumes and sets are very realistic. But I have to say, although it has a different topic to most of the others, I am getting really tired of World War II films. It is definitely one of the better ones though!

(photo:http://www.anonyma.film.de/)

Fatih Akin

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Im Juli (In July) and Gegen die Wand (Head-on), directed by Fatih Akin

Im Juli is a romantic road movie. Simple plot but interesting locations. The journey starts in Hamburg and ends in Istanbul. The absolute loser Daniel falls in love with a beautiful Turkish girl and follows her to Istanbul. In a car, lorry, ship, on foot, car again. Juli, who is in love with Daniel without telling him, travels with him. Of course in the end Daniel finds himself and his true love.

Somehow I felt that this film is missing a certain maturity. It is a bit clumsy, playing too much with extremes. E.g. at first Daniel is the most boring person anyone could meet and then he turns into a total hunk. There is no real sensitivity to the story or the characters.

Gegen die Wand is a lot more grown up. The story is more complex and cinematically it’s much better as well. Here the young Turkish girl Sibel does not want to live by her parents’ rules any longer. After a suicide attempt she meets Cahit Tomruk at the hospital and convinces him to marry her. She promises that their marriage will just be like being roommates. Being married means freedom for Sibel. Now she can go out and do whatever she likes to do, get a job, a tattoo and sleep around.

After a while Sibel and Cahit start to fall in love but neither of them knows how to approach the subject. At the climax of the film it all turns into a disaster. The ending is quite refreshing. Personally I much prefer this film to Im Juli. It is absolutely recommendable.

Fun Fact: Both films are partly shot in Hamburg. Mostly Altona. It is nice to see the city on the screen.

(Photos: flickr/ Straight No Chaser and Wasoxygen)

Die Fälscher (The Counterfeiters)

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Berlin, 1936. The Jew Salomon Sorowitsch is the best counterfeiter in Germany. He is living a comfortable life of gambling, booze and women until he is caught. Straight away he is sent to a concentration camp where he is able to use his skills as an artist to get some extra food by painting pictures of his superintendents.

After some time Salomon is transferred to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp where he is forced to play a big part in Operation Bernhard. Here the Nazis want him to produce counterfeit British pounds and American dollars in order to fund the war and disrupt those economies. Salomon and the other inmates try to save their skin by playing along with the Nazis. Adolf Burger, who is politically active, is the only one to sabotage the operation. He manages to delay the process of making the perfect replica of the dollar long enough until the war is over.

Although the film is quite good and the acting is great, I was surprised to hear that it won the Oscar as Best Foreign Film.

The film is based on a true story. This is an interview with the real Adolf Burger, who survived the war.

Chiko – Digger, was geht?!

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Surprisingly humorous and enjoyable German/Turkish gangster film. Surprising mainly because I personally don’t really like German films or gangster films. But I did really enjoy watching this one. The acting and the language are very real and touching. The main character (Chiko) realizes that friendship is more important then money and women. Well done.

I’d say go watch it if you don’t mind to see a bit of violence and lots and lots of swearing underlined with subtle humour. Plus it’s got the most horrendous car in it: a white new Mercedes with gold rims. It’s almost worth watching just to see the hideousness of this car. Fun fact: The film was made in Hamburg 🙂

A little cinema anecdote:

We were sitting in a fairly empty cinema with our legs over the seats in front of us (ohhh…bad!). A security guy came in after the ads to tell us off. Fair enough…Obviously we put our legs back when the lights were turned off. The funny and rather surprising bit was that he came back during the film (!) and stood next to us with his arms across watching us for a few minutes to make sure we wouldn’t do it again!!! How rude! I had to laugh so much I could hardly concentrate on the film. After the film was finished we dashed past the guy, out of the cinema before he could say anything.

Check it out! There are a lot more German films being made at the moment then I realized. (The video is in English)