Konterr Brilliant and touching

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Catherina If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

paul2001sw-1 This brilliant German film explores two fundamental questions: whether it is possible to collaborate with a fundamentally oppressive state, and the acute degree of personal loneliness felt by those who cannot, and whom the state thereby treats as its enemies. The mundane depersonalisation of life under the Stasi is captured much more acutely, it seems to me, in this story than in the more acclaimed 'The Lives of Others'; that the leading collaborator is arguably a decent and attractive person, albeit one who has made different choices to the admirable but not wholly likable heroine, adds subtlety and humanity to the overall portrait of society. Both protagonists are excellent in their roles; the camera-work captures the underlying feelings of alienation in a way that reminded me of early Kieslowski. 'Barbara' is by turns bleak, poetic, emotional and thought-provoking: it deserves to be more widely known.

Tweekums This film is centred on East German doctor; the eponymous Barbara. She used to work at the prestigious Berlin hospital but has been transferred to a small rural hospital for reasons that aren't immediately obvious but it is clear that she has done something that the regime didn't approve of. While working at the hospital it becomes clear that the Stasi are keeping close tabs on her; her boss clearly knows more about her than one would expect and when she disappears from their surveillance she gets a less than subtle visit from the Stasi. We later learn that she was punished for applying for permission to leave the country and she hasn't given up her plans to leave.We see that she is a caring and competent doctor; just the sort the hospital needs… she diagnoses a case of meningitis that others have missed and later realises another patient needs an urgent operation. During this time she grows professionally closer to her superior Dr André Reiser despite suspecting that he is informing for the dreaded Stasi. As time passes and the day of her escape to the west approaches she must decide between freedom in the West and staying at the hospital where her skills are needed.Having seen 'The Lives of Others' I was expecting another grim urban setting but this was set in beautiful countryside; something that contrasts with Barbara's basic apartment and the under-equipped hospital where she works. The story is told with a surprisingly light touch given the subject matter; the scenes of Barbara cycling through the countryside are positively bucolic. Nina Hoss carries the story as Barbara but is ably supported by Ronald Zehrfeld who played Dr Reiser and Rainer Bock who plays the sinister Stasi Officer Klaus Schütz. While there is little actual violence there is the feeling that there is a real danger for Barbara… especially when the Stasi search her flat and more disturbingly her body. The dilemma of whether she will try to escape or not is nicely depicted and her final decision is depicted in a believable way. Overall I think this German drama is well worth watching; it may not be fast paced but it is still fairly gripping.

Howard Schumann Set in Communist East Germany in the early 1980s, cold war paranoia is in full view in Christian Petzold's Barbara, winner of the Silver Berlin Bear for Best Director at the Berlinale. In Barbara, Petzold has fashioned not only a superb character study but a film that illuminates the effects of oppression on the human psyche, an oppression that ended in Germany only with the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of East and West many years later. The film shows the East German security apparatus' (Stasi) use of intimidation and disorientation as tools in operating a system of control and surveillance directed at those suspected of opposing the GDR.Portrayed by Nina Hoss in a performance of remarkable nuance and authenticity, Barbara, an East Berlin doctor, has been exiled to a small clinic in the provinces after applying for an exit visa to visit her boyfriend in the West. She is a tall, stately, and attractive woman, yet taciturn and distant, her face filled with an indescribable sadness. Trying to serve her patients as best she can, she knows that she is under surveillance by the Stasi, particularly by Officer Klaus Schutz (Rainer Bock), who does not hesitate to conduct unannounced searches of Barbara's apartment, even her person, and whose presence in her life is all too visible.Not knowing whom to trust, thinking (perhaps rightly so) that her friends and colleagues may be police informants, Barbara's aloofness leads her colleagues to give her the nickname of "Berlin" to describe what they think is her big-city attitude. On the job, however, she does not allow her fears to get in the way of her professional responsibilities and her relationship with her patients shows her hidden warmth. Dr. André Reiser (Ronald Zehrfeld), a soft-looking, slightly heavy-set doctor, solicits her friendship and offers repeatedly to drive her home but she keeps him at arms length, suspicious of his possible connections.In spite of this tense atmosphere, Barbara manages to befriend Stella (Jasna Fritzi Bauer), a young patient who escaped from a work camp at Torgau. Correctly diagnosing her with Meningitis, a diagnosis that the other doctors had overlooked, she reads The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to her in the evening, a story of two people on the run. More tension is added when we see Barbara's surreptitious exchange of black market cigarettes and packets of money with people unknown. In a rapturous meeting with her West German lover Jorg (Mark Waschke) in a secluded forest area, she is given the choice of leaving the country with him, reassured that, because of his circumstances, she would no longer have to work.Barbara and her friend make plans, but her growing relationship with André and ties to young Stella become complicating factors. André's own story of how he ended up in the village only adds to her confusion and uncertainty. Barbara is an understated gem that never hits us over the head with its message but leaves no doubt about its implications. While the film depicts the circumstances in a particular country, it transcends its limitations to become a universal experience. A compelling and riveting film, it begins in resignation and ends in transformation.

JackCerf The story is set in East Germany in 1980, when it looked like Communism would last forever. Central character is Dr. Barbara Wolff, played by the classically beautiful blonde Nina Hoss, who I've previously seen in A Woman In Berlin. Dr. Wolff was a fast track young doctor at the Charite, the big teaching hospital in Berlin, before she fell in love with a West German businessman and applied for an exit visa. That got her a short spell in prison for ingratitude to the workers and farmers who paid for her medical education, together with a transfer to a one horse town in Mecklenburg, where she seems to be the second doctor in a two doctor pediatric clinic. We know all this because, as she is getting off the bus, the local Stasi man is going through her file with Andre, the head doctor at the clinic. Andre is what they used to call an Inoffiziale Mitarbeiter, or unofficial cooperator. We find out why later on. He's also an attractive, shambling 30 something bachelor in a kind of teddy bear way, a skilled, dedicated doctor with a good bedside manner, and, notwithstanding his work as an informer, a pretty decent guy by the standards of the time and place.Barbara twigs immediately that Andre's an informer when he offers her a lift home from work on the first day. As they drive through an intersection in his piece of crap Trabant, she says, "you were supposed to ask me which way to turn, but then, you already know where I live." She is resentful, understandably so, and standoffish, which the clinic staff put down to stuck up Berlin attitude. That may have something to do with the open surveillance by the Stasi guy and regular searches of her apartment, complete with strip searches by a female agent. But Barbara is also a first class doctor who takes a real interest in her patients. Andre is quietly smitten -- if you've seen Hoss you'll know why -- and keeps chipping away at her resistance. Despite knowing who else he works for, she can't help responding.What neither Andre nor the Stasi agent know is that Barbara is contriving to meet her Wessi boyfriend when he's in the East on business, and they're scheming to smuggle her out. He's crazy about her, even saying that he'd move East if she wants, but there are slight intimations that life in the West with him might not be exactly as she's dreamed of. In any event, there's a lot of sneaking about, and Hoss has a good line in tense body language and over the shoulder glances. Everybody knows everybody's business in a small town anyway, and in a small town in Mecklenburg, your landlady, your co-workers, or anyone you pass on the street could be an informer. Complications ensue, involving Andre, the escape plan, and Barbara's obligations to two young patients in whom she has taken a special interest. I won't tell you how they play out, except that nothing goes quite as expected. The movie gives you a very good sense of a society in which everyone is compromised in some way, trust and intimacy are not really possible, but life has to go on nevertheless. It's not as showy as The Lives of Others, but it gives a better sense of what everyday life was like in the German Democratic Republic, where it has been estimated that there was one Stasi employee for every 165 citizens and one informer for every 6.5.