Parental Guide!!
Sex & Nudity:
A teacher gives her students good-night kisses on the mouth.
WHAT???
What has a kiss (especially to a 13year old girl) to do with SEX?? Are you crazy?
Actually she only gives one student a kiss on the lips b/c she is upset having just arrived. The other students she kisses on the forehead. There is absolutely no sex nor even a hint of it but there is some obsessive longing but the point isn't supposed to be lesbianism but instead the oppressive Prussian educational system.
The main character's mother had died and so Fraulein von Bernburg becomes a surrogate mother to her as she has to many of the girls at the school.
This is a great film.
its been a while since i saw it but kissing a student like that when they have just arrived is a bit strange. in the remake, it makes more sense when the student kisses the teacher as they go through the script after having been in class with each other. the context of the kiss in the b/w film was a little odd for me but maybe i need to rewatch it again
shareKeep in mind that this film was made at a time when it was not unusual for young women to be affectionate with each other - even walk down the street holding hands - and it did not mean they were lesbians. That behaviour may seem odd to prudish 21st-century Americans, but that was the case even here at that time.
And I must also add that this film has as much or more to do with the anguish and longing of unrequited love, and the struggle against an oppressive society as it does with outright lesbianism. There are no overt sex scenes or anything even remotely close. All in all, however, it is one of the most unique and touching films ever made, and a must-see for anyone interested in Pre-War cinema.
i know girls held hands all the time back then but it still seems odd that a teacher would welcome a student with a kiss on the lips. i am neither american or a prude but was that normal back then?
shareI guess to be truly fair you would have to define "normal", but from what I know of the period I'm pretty certain that a modest kiss on the lips would not have been considered scandalous or extremely unusual - at a secular, all girl's school (a convent school or an all-boys school would have been an entirely different matter). But also bear in mind, this is a work of fiction...
sharefair point
shareno itsd nt normal ath these times. movie is banned for this kiss remember?
shareno its not normal at these times. movie is banned for this kiss remember?
share