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Reviews
Nikolaikirche (1995)
A good film for German students.
It took a while for this film to take a hold of me. It seemed to start off slowly, but then built up to a rousing story of the collapse of the State of the DDR (East Germany) and how these very same forces drive apart one family in particular. Of course this family is representative of East Germany as a whole and are entirely fictional, but this does not detract from the fact that the film is based on actual events or that on the whole that it is very believable and compelling. I found the climax very emotional, the deployment of troops to stop any protesters and how they were almost ready for civil war, until the authorities finally shirked from a bloodbath that would ensue in trying to use force to stop over 70 000 protesters. In the film we hear the lies of the East German state and see the reality. We see a state held only together by informers and how finally the authorities are helpless to stop popular change in what became a bloodless revolution that united Germany. One of the lines I remember from the film is, "wir nehmen nur die Staerksten" (we only take the strongest), as the brother tries to convince his sister to join the Stasi. Here, in East Germany, loyalty had become to mean strength. Loyalty was an essential attribute for a citizen, for on it depended the state. But there was very little loyalty for the state, it was held together by lies and fear. So it rightly collapsed.
In the end a pretty good film, especially for students of German and modern German history.
Die Brücke (1959)
One of the best anti-war films ever.
If there is one thing I feel must be said, it is that this film is far superior to Saving Private Ryan. In fact I have a sneaking suspicion that Spielberg saw this film and copied ideas from it, especially the bridge battle at the end and the use of youth to generate sympathy. Not to turn this review intio an anti Saving Private Ryan rant, I very much feel that SPR was not an anti-war film, in fact it was pro-war, to fight and kill is all good when you are on the winning side and that your enemies will remain faceless or will come back and kill you if you do not kill them first. Whereas here we have 7 young boys drafted at the end of the war. Their belief and enthusiasm is cruelly abused by a twisted and doomed regime, in some pathetic hope to draw out the war for a bit longer. Yet they do not see this. The enemy is on German soil, yet they are willing to fight for final victory. We also see in the film how they are just boys growing up, sometimes hard enough in itself without a war going on. They are a mixture of real innocence and innocence trying to fill the role of men (since everyman over 16 is at the front). Despite the efforts of their teacher and their company C.O. to spare them death on the front , they are finally crushed not only by American tanks but their own idealism, and an uncaring military machine. Do not watch watch this film to see war and glory but to see the waste and perversion of war and perhaps the seldom told tale of the otherside.