I missed this film when it came out and just found it in the local library on DVD. The most interesting and thought provoking films about the Nazi time seem to come out of German speaking countries fifty or sixty years after the fact and I was surprised to read that it was actually an Australian film and the director was Australian, but from the credits I learned that it was cooperation. You have to see this film several times to get it all and even then many scenes are open to interpretation as much is only shown in images without words.
This film shows how children get indoctrinated with the beliefs of their parents before the time they are able to form their own judgment. Racism is taught, it does not come natural. It also shows that an authoritarian education produces people who follow orders without questioning them. What is shown above all is that people are not willing to give up on a dream. Hitler created this dream of Germany being the greatest country on earth with the most powerful military and that there will be a final victory. When instead of the final victory the ultimate disaster happened ,they were just not willing to let the dream go.
The lead character Lore goes on a difficult journey from teenager to adult when she is suddenly forced to be the head of the family of five children struggling their way through the ruined Germany from South to North through the different zones now occupied by the US, Russia, Britain and France. The parents who obviously were high ranking Nazis took the easy way out and abandoned the children. Here in the States nobody since the Civil war experiences the aftermaths of a lost war. All wars are fought far away and only the relatives of the dead or wounded soldiers have to deal with the aftermaths of war while the general population does not have to bear the consequences of the decisions their leaders made. No bombed out cities, no hunger, no rapes by the enemy soldiers, no fear of being imprisoned, no guilt feelings and no questioning of their own or other's actions.
This film gives a very accurate picture of the postwar Germany and I am qualified to say so as in a way I was the little baby Peter in this film. I was born in January 1945 in Berlin and my parents had to flee to the Black Forest when the Russians invaded Berlin. I spent my first year of life on the road together with my seven year old brother and my parents ,who were starved to skeletons, selling all the family jewelry and silver for food along the way. There are no pictures of me as a baby and all I ever heard of my birth was that my mother was scared to death during the whole pregnancy because Berlin was bombed all the time. Like nearly all Germans of my generation I hate war. I do not know any young boy my age who entered military service, they all chose civil service instead when they were drafted. Of course I was too little to remember my first year, but I remember very well that nobody talked about the war when I grew up. Even the teachers in school managed somehow to omit this subject in history classes. I grew up in a society who did not practice racism. Only when I moved to the US did I learn what racism looks like. I also grew up with friends who came from large families and at the time I thought that my parents had only two children because they married later in life. Much later I realized that these families with five or six children were following Hitler's population program to produce as many children of the "Arian" race as possible. What was very interesting about this film was also that people did not like Americans, I do not remember that, I grew up as an European and America was so far away that it did not concern me. .
I am so glad that many people in this forum recognize what a powerful film this is. The only very small critique I have is that the people the children meet in the Black Forest would not speak High German, having grown up in this area it just felt so wrong, everybody speaks dialect. I thought the acting was outstanding , I was already familiar with the actor who played Thomas from the " The White Ribbon. " which is another excellent movie showing how Germans got to be the way they were during the time leading to WWII. My compliments to the director I will make sure I will see all her films in future.
This film shows how children get indoctrinated with the beliefs of their parents before the time they are able to form their own judgment. Racism is taught, it does not come natural. It also shows that an authoritarian education produces people who follow orders without questioning them. What is shown above all is that people are not willing to give up on a dream. Hitler created this dream of Germany being the greatest country on earth with the most powerful military and that there will be a final victory. When instead of the final victory the ultimate disaster happened ,they were just not willing to let the dream go.
The lead character Lore goes on a difficult journey from teenager to adult when she is suddenly forced to be the head of the family of five children struggling their way through the ruined Germany from South to North through the different zones now occupied by the US, Russia, Britain and France. The parents who obviously were high ranking Nazis took the easy way out and abandoned the children. Here in the States nobody since the Civil war experiences the aftermaths of a lost war. All wars are fought far away and only the relatives of the dead or wounded soldiers have to deal with the aftermaths of war while the general population does not have to bear the consequences of the decisions their leaders made. No bombed out cities, no hunger, no rapes by the enemy soldiers, no fear of being imprisoned, no guilt feelings and no questioning of their own or other's actions.
This film gives a very accurate picture of the postwar Germany and I am qualified to say so as in a way I was the little baby Peter in this film. I was born in January 1945 in Berlin and my parents had to flee to the Black Forest when the Russians invaded Berlin. I spent my first year of life on the road together with my seven year old brother and my parents ,who were starved to skeletons, selling all the family jewelry and silver for food along the way. There are no pictures of me as a baby and all I ever heard of my birth was that my mother was scared to death during the whole pregnancy because Berlin was bombed all the time. Like nearly all Germans of my generation I hate war. I do not know any young boy my age who entered military service, they all chose civil service instead when they were drafted. Of course I was too little to remember my first year, but I remember very well that nobody talked about the war when I grew up. Even the teachers in school managed somehow to omit this subject in history classes. I grew up in a society who did not practice racism. Only when I moved to the US did I learn what racism looks like. I also grew up with friends who came from large families and at the time I thought that my parents had only two children because they married later in life. Much later I realized that these families with five or six children were following Hitler's population program to produce as many children of the "Arian" race as possible. What was very interesting about this film was also that people did not like Americans, I do not remember that, I grew up as an European and America was so far away that it did not concern me. .
I am so glad that many people in this forum recognize what a powerful film this is. The only very small critique I have is that the people the children meet in the Black Forest would not speak High German, having grown up in this area it just felt so wrong, everybody speaks dialect. I thought the acting was outstanding , I was already familiar with the actor who played Thomas from the " The White Ribbon. " which is another excellent movie showing how Germans got to be the way they were during the time leading to WWII. My compliments to the director I will make sure I will see all her films in future.