"Deutschland bleiche Mutter" or "Germany Pale Mother" is a West German 2-hour movie from 1980, so this one already had its 35th anniversary last year. The writer and director is Helma Sanders-Brahms, a filmmaker who died 2 years ago and was probably among Germany's most impactful female directors of the 20th century. This one here is her most known work I guess. But sadly, I cannot share the praise. The question if and how much you end up liking this film is closely connected with how much you like lead actress Eva Mattes in here as she is in basically every scene from start to finish. I have liked her much more in some other films I saw and she feels sometimes pretty much off the mark and over-the-top in here. This is especially disappointing as the topic deserves a much better film. I also cannot say that I was too fond of the script in general or the male lead actor Ernst Jacobi in here. Mattes plays a woman who lives on her own in Nazi Germany after her husband goes off to war and also after the war has ended she is still alone for quite a while until her man finally returns home from imprisonment. In the meantime she is mother of a daughter and a lot more has changed, also her man's state of mind and, last but not least, her own sanity. At times, it is a pretty tough watch and there is no other appropriate description for this film in terms of genre other than drama. It is not a failure by any means, but I also did not think it was a worthy addition to the best watches in terms of "Trümmerfrauen" films. But then again, it seems as if the focus is much more on the two protagonists than on the historic context and this was a negative aspect as well in my opinion. All in all, the bad outweighs the good and this film dragged considerably during its 120 minutes runtime. I give it a thumbs-down.
Review of Germany Pale Mother
