The suffering of these Berlin women, however tragic, is decontextualized from the infinitely greater crimes against humanity's millions by Germany at the time, which in fact was responsible for their fate.
A Woman in Berlin (2008)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:24
Fresh:19
Rotten:5
Average Rating:6.8/10
Consensus: With a powerful lead performance by star Nina Hoss, A Woman in Berlin sheds a light on the moral complications of war.
Theatrical Release:Jul 17, 2009 Limited
Synopsis: AIMEE & JAGUAR’s Max Faerberboeck directs this gripping drama set in the days after Russia’s invasion of Berlin in 1945. Anonyma (Nina Hoss, YELLA) is surrounded by women, children, and men too... AIMEE & JAGUAR’s Max Faerberboeck directs this gripping drama set in the days after Russia’s invasion of Berlin in 1945. Anonyma (Nina Hoss, YELLA) is surrounded by women, children, and men too weak or old to fight in the war, and there is no one to defend her from the ravenous appetites of the invading army. After she and many of the women around her are raped, Anonyma picks Russian soldier Andrej (Evgeny Sidikhin) to be her protector, and they come to a compromise: if she has sex with him, he will keep her from his fellow men. Anonyma and Andrej embark on a strange relationship, and despite the appearance of affection, there is never any doubt of their positions in the world and the war. Based on an international bestseller, A WOMAN IN BERLIN also stars Irm Hermann, Rudiger Vogler, and Juliane Koehler. [More]
Starring: Nina Hoss, Evgeny Sidikhin, Irm Hermann, Rudiger Vogler
Starring: Nina Hoss, Evgeny Sidikhin, Irm Hermann, Rudiger Vogler, Ulrike Krumbiegel, Rolf Kanies, Jordis Triebel, Roman Gribkov, Juliane Koehler, Samvel Muzhikyan
Director: Max Faerberboeck
Director: Max Faerberboeck
Screenwriter: Max Faerberboeck
Producer: Gunter Rohrbach
Composer: Zbigniew Preisner
Studio: Strand Releasing
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Reviews for A Woman in Berlin
It's a rigorous adaptation, handsomely mounted and with fine performances, but totally impersonal.
A clear-eyed portrait of a highly charged chapter in Germany's history, a history that once again proves rewarding fodder for an alert artistic imagination.
That rarest of wartime dramas: an intimate, sorrowful glimpse into the heart and loins of the hellish aftermath of war.
Though deliberately paced and somewhat repetitive, it's...powerful and enlightening.
No one is guiltless—not the Russian commander (Yevgeny Sidikhin) who takes the heroine as his lover, nor her bourgeois landlady (Fassbinder alumnus Irm Hermann), who welcomes the occupiers for their black market goods.
The film is well-acted, with restraint, by Hoss and Sidikhin. The writer and director, Max Faerberboeck, employs a level gaze and avoids for the most part artificial sentimentality. The physical production is convincing.
This sobering account of such tragic events deserves kudos for avoiding sensationalizing a subject matter that easily could be exploited.
Like The Reader, this film treads unsteadily over the terrain of German guilt.
Sometimes a movie based on true events is forceful out of all proportion to its middling presentation.
This little-known, morally complex tale of German women's endurance in WWII raises interesting questions and almost forces you to take a stance.
Now it can be told: the ugly truth that German women cooperated with the Russian enemy to avoid rape, and what's more appear to have developed affection for the conquerors!
Captivating and emotionally resonating with a powerfully raw performance by Nina Hoss.
Though the story is based in truth, an emotionally removed Hoss feels more like a symbol than an actual person, while her detached narration keeps us at further remove.
A Woman in Berlin, which is based on an anonymously written memoir of the same name, serves also as a testimony to women who put men in their place.
However and wherever you see it, A Woman in Berlin is a distinctive achievement, a World War II movie unlike any other and one of the few films ever to address a topic that makes almost everyone want to look away: What happens to women in wartime.
[C]reates complex, three-dimensional men and women, Germans and Russians, who are each victims of political propaganda and the horrors of a brutal, total war.
Latest News for A Woman in Berlin
August 26, 2009:
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