A Woman in Berlin: Review By harveycritic

A WOMAN IN BERLIN

Strand Releasing

Reviewed for MovieWeb by Harvey Karten

Grade: B+

Directed by: Max Farberbock

Written By: Max Farberbock, from Anonyma’s diary

Cast: Nina Hoss, Evgeny Sidikhin, Irm Hermann, Rudiger Vogler, Ulrike Krumbiegel, Rolf Kanies, Jordis Triebel, August Diehl, Roman Gribkov, Juliane Kohler

Screened at: Angelika Theater, NYC, 7/23/09

Opens: July 17, 2009

In some areas of the Muslim world a woman who is raped is considered not a victim but a perpetrator, not unlike the view of some yahoos even in the U.S. that “she must have been asking for it.” In Cyrus Nowrasteh’s film “The Stoning of Soraya M,” the true story that took place in mullah-ruled Iran in 1986, the title character refuses to grant a divorce to her tyrannical husband because she would be left unable financially to support herself and her four children. The husband conjures up a story that his wife had sex with a caretaker. She is stoned to death.

In his film, “A Woman in Berlin,” Max Farberbock uses a diary from an anonymous woman who describes in great detail how soldiers of the victorious Russian army, marching and driving victorious into East Berlin, take liberties with the German women—raping large numbers in part because of their hatred of a population whose armies killed 27 million of their own people. The memoir of this anonymous, educated woman, one who spoke German, French and Russian, had been banned but was published in Switzerland in 1959 in its original language,having been first published in 1954 in English, anonymously. The kicker is that both sides feared the publication: the Russians are naturally not inclined to be exposed for their atrocities, but the Germans are incensed not so much because of the rapes but because of the accommodations that the German women made to survive. As Monday-morning quarterbacks, we can settle back in our armchairs and condemn these women for treason, but how many would have been willing to be brutally ravished, starved, even killed had they resisted? Aren’t such accommodations made even in our own, American prison system?

The title figure known as Anonyma (Nina Hoch), whose identity was later revealed as Marta Hillers (1911-2001), believes that to save herself for being attacked daily by a multitude of beastly soldiers, she must find someone to protect her. In return, she would available as his sex slave. She walks up to Andrej (Evgeny Sidikhim), the unit’s major and commanding officer, offering herself to him in return for his protection from other soldiers. The spine of the movie is the affection that is shared between officer and victim, the very idea causing the German people to feel even more humiliated than a defeated power would otherwise be. This is true particularly since the author had been a true believer in the National Socialist cause,

While some women in the area continue to resist advances from the Red army contingent, one even sheltering a young man with a revolver at the risk of execution, one compound was turned into a veritable brothel—the older women in particular seeming eager to dance with the enemy as both sides become strangely comfortable with each other. One older woman, a widow (Irm Hermann), is photographed as particularly welcoming of the soldiers, and not simply because she was supplied with food.

Director Farberbock takes a middle ground in revealing the rapes—not so graphic that they would appear exploitative, yet not too distant lest the horrors appear attenuated. But most of the action centers on the accommodations made by both sides, Reds and German women sharing potatoes, even two pieces of halibut which were named “Hitler” and “Goering.” The invading soldiers cheer wildly, shooting their machine guns into the air, when the announcement is made that the war is over, just days after Hitler had committed suicide and Mussollni was hanged upside down by Italian partisans.

A recent film that vividly shows another cape of accommodation, Boaz Yakin’s “Death in Love,” describes the amorous adventures of a Nazi doctor experimenting on women who is seduced by one of his victims—the two locating genuine affection between themselves. While “A Woman in Berlin” is purportedly true, “Death in Love” is likely to be pure fantasy.

If the author were alive today, she would likely be pleased by the faithful adaption of her writing to the screen. Sensationalism is kept to a minimum, the ruins are vivid, the spirit of the times captured at sites in Westphalia, Germany; Lower Silesia, Poland; with the interiors from MMC Studios in the North Rhine city of Hurth. Dialogue is in Russian and German.

Unrated. 131 minutes. © 2009 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online