A nameless woman keeps a diary as the Russians invade Berlin in the spring of 1945. In her desperation, she decides to look for an officer who can protect her. She meets a Russian officer, an encounter which develops into a complex symbiotic relationship that forces them to remain enemies until the bitter end.
30 October 1977, East-Berlin, German Democratic Republic
1979, Potsdam, German Democratic Republic
4 October 1942, Munich, Germany
28 May 1946, Vladikavkaz, USSR
14 May 1942, Warthausen, Biberach, Württemberg [now Baden-Württemberg], Germany
28 May 1985, Berlin, Germany
1956
27 September 1979, Hofgeismar, Germany
30 August 1964, Russia
1998
4 April 1965, Leningrad, RSFSR, USSR [now St. Petersburg, Russia]
14 August 1987, Munich, Bavaria, West Germany
7 July 1975, Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
13 March 1960, Leningrad, RSFSR, USSR [now St. Petersburg, Russia]
1967
30 May 1943, Altenburg, Germany
1979, Berlin, Germany
16 December 1961, East Berlin, East Germany
25 January 1927, Groß-Weikersdorf, Lower Austria, Austria
4 January 1976, Berlin, Germany
February 16, 2010
An honourable effort to illustrate a period in post-war German history that remained conveniently shrouded for years.
September 24, 2009
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.
August 21, 2009
Sometimes a movie based on true events is forceful out of all proportion to its middling presentation.
November 06, 2009
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.
August 07, 2009
[A] brutal, unforgettable film.
October 09, 2009
That rarest of wartime dramas: an intimate, sorrowful glimpse into the heart and loins of the hellish aftermath of war.
October 06, 2009
Though deliberately paced and somewhat repetitive, it's...powerful and enlightening.
December 04, 2009
It's a rigorous adaptation, handsomely mounted and with fine performances, but totally impersonal.
December 18, 2009
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.
September 15, 2009
This sobering account of such tragic events deserves kudos for avoiding sensationalizing a subject matter that easily could be exploited.
October 02, 2009
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.
July 17, 2009
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.
