Sisters, or The Balance of Happiness (1979) User Reviews

Subtle, complex

[Billiam-4 · 6/10 · 6 March 2022]

Subtle, complex, but also a bit stiff examination of a sisterly relationship compels mainly through the excellent performances by Jutta Lampe, Gudrun Gabriel and Jessica Früh.

harrowing and intense

[mundsen · 10/10 · 17 November 2006]

German film of the seventies. More fun than... well actually, no fun at all.

A glib analysis would state that all the war babies and boomers came of age, and began to express their neuroses on film. People talk about "war guilt" - that was part of it, but also a phenomenal feeling of sadness and melancholy. It pervades this film; there's a feeling of the events taking place just after something appalling. The war and its aftermath are 'the two-hundred-pound gorilla in the corner': unmentioned, unpictured, and undeniable.

I suppose, in a way, this movie is a distant Teutonic cousin of "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" - a simple domestic story of sisters going mad in their own ways. You could almost describe the scenario as 'banal', but it's delivered with such intensity and integrity that the results are genuinely tragic.

The acting is outrageously good. Unlike the Davis / Crawford epic, this one doesn't shy away from lesbian sexual energy between the two siblings, which adds another layer of creepiness.

brilliant

[josephemeryprank · 10/10 · 13 May 2009]

ah it is nice to see that at least one other person has seen this film. i remember going to see it at the wonderful Academy cinema in oxford street that used to show a lot of European films. i remember the main character was a painter who used to paint known paintings in black and white until they went down into the basement and found her "real" stuff - a bit like satellite pictures of planets that made a great impression on me in my early 20s. an exhibition of her work is arranged, amid memories that her brother had also had a painting exhibition some years before and had committed suicide because of the exposure. like a lot of German films (of which i'm no expert) this was a v moving and powerful film because understated and unsentimental and it trusts its audience enough not to dictate to them how to respond. am reminded a bit of a powerful German play called The Sun Shines On All Alike ps. just read the synopsis of this film and it doesn't appear to be the one that i remember!("Sheer Madness"?)

Only for huge fans of female-centered films

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 3 August 2016]

"Schwestern oder Die Balance des Glücks", also known as "Sisters, or The Balance of Happiness", is a West German film from 1979, so a few more years and this one will have its 40th anniversary. The director and one of the writers was Margarethe von Trotta, who was still married to Volker Schlöndorff around that time. The film runs for slightly over 90 minutes and won lead actress Jutta Lampe a German Film Award. Around that time, von Trotta made several films that focused on the topic of feminism and mostly female protagonists. This one here is the story of Maria, but also of a few more (female) characters, that play a major role in Maria's life, such as her sister. The latter is played by Gudrun Gabriel and I must say she looked pretty stunning. But back to the story. We get to witness Maria's struggles in terms of personal and professional life and we find out who her real friends are (no) and what she is a really like. Is she a likable character or an antagonist in her own films. There is no one definite answer to that question I guess. von Trotta did a good job with giving her characters shades and keep them from being all good or all bad which was a frequent problem in (German) film around that time. Nonetheless, I must say that I was not really that impressed by the story overall and I cared little about the characters and what happened to them. Maybe the reason was that it was a fairly bleak and slow film just like most of von Trotta's work. The acting is fairly decent though and luckily she did not collaborate with the extremely overrated Sukowa here yet. Still, all in all, it was never an investing film for me whatsoever, which is why I give it a thumbs-down. Not recommended.