What do you guys think of this movie?
Just curious.
shareI think that it would have been a better movie if Susanne and the doctor would have been married since before the war. He went off to fight and she ended up in the Koncentration Camp. Then he assumes she is dead or left him for someone else, then she comes home and he is a drunk mess. She still has to take care of him and nurse him back to (mental) health. But I thought that part was pretty cheesy, that the 2 strangers live together and she cares for him until they love each other. That part was just stupid. Otherwise it wasn't so bad.
shareMaybe it was supposed to symbolised unconditional love?
shareyea, but couldn't have symbolised unconditional love better if she loved him as her husband and not some random guy. I think the movie as it is does not symbolise uncoditional love, it shows a woman who has a need to take care of people, that guy could have been a baby, another woman, anyone. Why does she love him, because she wants to take care of him, and in my opinion, that really isn't love to begin with. But if it were her husband, then she would have to love him no matter if he killed people or not. Does that make sense?
shareWell, sort of. I'm trying to see your point of view. Perhpas the fact that he's just some random guy who she hardly knows makes her love even greater? Or maybe it's not about love, but two people who happened to come together and trying to make the most/best out of the horrific situation at the end of the war?
shareThe unconditional love is precisely the point of the movie. This isn't a movie of romantic love, but a film about how trauma can be overcome. In this case, Susanne has to care for another person as a way of being anything other than a victim of the crimes against her.
When Muerten almost shoots is former officer in the rubble, he isn't interrupted by just some woman. He's interrupted by his own ability to care for others, being useful as a way of overcoming this other story that has taken over his life. This assassination was a response to the pain inflicted on him by playing part to the brutality of those war crimes which are too horrible to name. The interruption gets Muerten out of his own head.
The second assassination attempt is then prompted by his conviction that the murder will allow him closure, that somehow killing the factory owner he will be fulfilling his ethical obligations which were reawakened when he saved the little girl. When Susanne interrupts (which was not part of the original script but was rather a concession to Soviet political interests) he is acknowledging that his ethical obligations do not exist in the vacuum of his hate and pain. She is also part of the process and perhaps we could say that she has more right to kill than he does. So he goes from living in his own head, to reentering the ethical realm, to entering the social/political realm.
This script was offered both to the US and to England. Both superpowers decided that Germans should not be creating films so close to the time of Nazi propaganda. The Soviets, however, saw this film as an opportunity to address and control German guilt.
All that said, I'm not saying that I think this film is particularly ethically responsible. But I think it's an important lineage to trace in how a wound can be expressed and treated. I thought it was fascinating.
excellent analysis.
one point of difference - given the year of its creation especially, it is very ethically responsible picture. quite early for the resolution of confronting the atrocities, acknowledging the guilt & impulse to reprisal.
a skillful use of drama in the service of re-generative propaganda - under the aegis of the folks who raped literally hundreds of thousands of women in poland and germany during the counter-attack on the eastern front and early occupation of germany, and who at this very moment were in the process of assassinating polish leaders, subverting any democratic governments arising in central & eastern europe).
that's some chutzpah!
thanks for the additional information you've provided on the context of the film.
Spot on lil96 ... nobody falls in love with a drunk, mysterious, irresponsible jerk in a week or two. Making them married before war clears that up very nicely ... or they could have added some to the film and developed the relationship. This part made no sense to my pragmatic mind.
share