Anonyma - Eine Frau in Berlin

Plot synopsis:
CONTAINS SPOLIERS This is a real diary from a real woman. The woman cast in this film is too young too play the real woman. The diary was written by a woman in the basement of her bombed out building during the invasion of Berlin by The Red Army in the last months of WWII. It details the way German women survived the rapes the Red Army officers felt they deserved in victory. Anonymous uses one soldier to her advantage and essentially considers him her lover not her rapist. Her real fiancé returns from the front only to spurn her for being raped. The inginuity of the survival techniques used by the Berliners of this time round out Anon's tale. The diary should be read by every priveleged person, man or woman. Americans especially. War is no place for socialites.Regarding the age of the author vs. the actress; the author was 34 when writing the diary. Nina Hoss 33 at the time of filming. Great book.
In this movie appears Juliane Köhler who will later play the role of Clara, Fritz Shimon Haber's wife in Haber.

Tags: violence

Review:
To begin with the end note: When the anonymous memoir adapted here ('Anonyma - Eine Frau in Berlin') was published in Switzerland in 1959, it was greeted with such outrage among Germans the author allowed no further editions; she of course never revealed her name.
They don't, and when they invade Berlin and begin the wholesale raping of the German women, she chooses to mete out her favors selectively for her own protection and that of her neighbors in the apartment building.
"Anonyma" moves in with a group of others in a large flat and turns over the studio she occupied with her absent soldier boyfriend Gerd (August Diehl), for whom she keeps a diary of what happens, to an unrepentantly Nazi young woman and the adolescent German soldier boyfriend she hides (Sebastian Urzendowsky), who is armed.
And there are more, not to mention a half dozen clearly defined Russians, including the high ranking officer's Mongolian guard.It's a bit difficult to keep track of all these, and Woman in Berlin is best at making us feel close to the narrator and conveying a sense of the chaos and uncertainty when the invasion and the raping begin.
And the film shows the range of the then Russian people, the Ukrainians, Caucasians, Mongols, who are to be the Soviet Union.Though reviewers and commentators seem to think they know what all this material means and proclaim judgments if not on the protagonist, on the filmmaker, this is primarily an example of Germans taking hard looks at repressed material that formerly was too ugly to examine.
Even the fact that the book on which the movie is based was met with outrage when it was first published in the 50's is ultimately part of this chain.There are more complex answers to why horrible things happen in a war, and in the world in general - and Europe has had its share of it - and this film manages to capture these complexities masterfully..
It is often hard to make a choice between honor and survival.This is the story of German women at the end of WWII when the Russians have moved into Germany.
Anonyma (Nina Hoss) decides the best way is to find the best Russian officer to care for her in exchange for sex.It is easy to see why the Germans and the Russians hated the book, upon which this film is based, when it came out after the war.
It has the courage to tell the story of what it was like in Berlin as World War II was ending - the time of the Russian siege of the city just before and just after Hitler committed suicide, ending the horror of the Nazi regime.
While many films have been made about the German populace and how they coped with the fall of their 'great Third Reich' country that was to rule the planet, few have been able to allow the audience to understand the brutalities of war on the people of Germany in so direct a fashion.
Anonyma (Nina Hoss) is a journalist, a pretty woman living in the cellars and other hiding places while the Russians took over Berlin.
The Russian soldiers, still angry with the gnawing hatred for the Germans from the Siege of Leningrad and the loathing of anything that exists in Hitler's Berlin, drink heavily and seek out the women from hiding to satisfy their insatiable lust.
Anonyma speaks several languages including Russian and decides her only hope for survival is to align with the Commander of the troops, Major Andreij Rybkin (Yevgeni Sidikhin), believing that if she becomes his concubine she will be safe from the random raping by the rest of the soldiers.
Max Färberböck, known to the world-wide audience since his "Aimee and Jaguar", shows in this newer film for once not the standard story of the bad Germans, who, deserving after what they have done, being Nazis, are liberated by the good Russians, the good Americans and the good Allies.
After Berlin was taken over by Russian soldiers(among them men who had not had sex for four years) at the end of WW2, and raped 100.000 women, leading to the death of 10.000 of them.
A Woman in Berlin (2008)Imagine the horrors of women caught in a large city during the chaos of war, with occupying troops storming your apartment building day after day.
This is a personal story, centering around one woman played by Nina Hoss, and about the repeated rape and abuse of women by the Russian troops for days and weeks on end.
There was no escape, no power to complain to, no justice anywhere, anywhere, not German or Russian or even American (assuming they were any better) a mile or two away.The movie is based on a book, "Anonyma," by a woman whose identity is not revealed, if it is even known (this was her protection even after death).
(Wiki) The controversial German movie is about the women who survived the war by working as captivate prostitutes for the Russians.
The starting of the movie is really nice as how it shows how people have to go through and live through once Russians won over Germany.
The film stars the lovely to look at,Nina Foss as Anonyma,who's husband is seen shipping out for the elite S.S. squad of the German Army the very morning of the Soviet invasion of Berlin in 1945.
Determined to survive this nightmare,she forges a relationship with the Russian leader, Major Andrei Rybkin (played by Yevgeni Sidikhin,who commands a genuine presence here),as well as a renegade member of the German army,that is hiding in the attic of the apartment block she lives in.
The rest of the cast is made up of both German & Russian actors who truly live up to their roles (and watch out for a winning performance by Irm Hermann, generally known for her work in the films of the late Rainer Werner Fassbinder,as Witke).Comparisons to Paul Verhoeven's 'Black Book' will be obvious.
A wonderful movie, well directed and very well acted (main characters, especially Anonyma, played by Nina Hoss, and the Russian major, played by Evgeny Sidikhin, were simply superb).
Generally, I like watching movies about World War II, but I think it's something really special when you experience it from a German point of view.
For me, it is not important to pinpoint exactly how accurate this story is or whether it reflects a general situation for women in Berlin; the important thing is that it did happen to someone, and it forces the viewer to reconsider the whole "us and them" concept by demonstrating that there are perpetrators and victims among all peoples of all nations in the world.
What, Germany was invaded by Russian troops during the last few months of World War II, and the men were beaten, the women were raped and everyone had their property stolen by these shameless Ruskies?
As the great German writer Johannes Becher wrote in a poem after the war, "Who has done all the deeds/To free us from drudgery?/The heroes of the Soviet Union/Thanks to you, Soviet soldiers" But influenced by the Cold War triumphalism of Anglo-Americans, a resurgent neo-Nazism in Germany, and fascist nationalism in countries of Eastern Europe, there is an effort to rewrite the facts and results of World War II.
Blackening the name of the Red Army with sensationalistic, perverted accusations of mass rape made is part of an effort to revive German nationalism, whitewash the Nazi past, and normalize the fact that Germany was and will always be responsible for imposing a genocidal war.
The intent of this film to slander the Russians and the great Soviet soldiers as a hordes of marauding, Asiatic beasts has its roots in the dying days of the German Reich.As Russian historians have shown, an objective analysis of abuses by the Red Army demonstrates that rape and other crimes against Germans did not represent a massive and extraordinary phenomenon, and were not the reflection of an organized and systematic policy by the authorities.
While western falsifiers of history are so keen to highlight this "Eine frau in Berlin" story by devoting enormous resources for a movie and book, there is a curious absence of the stories of Red Army veterans who discredited these allegations of abusing German civilians, as well as countless German residents who expressed gratitude to the liberators.
The fact that some German women were raped by some soldiers of the Red Army isn't a secret.
Were there any Russian soldiers who raped German women?
If Russian soldiers were raping millions of East German women as this film falsely show, why did East Germany become socialist and remain socialist for over 40 years?
Women didn't speak like this when I was a young woman in NYC in the 1990's and they for sure didn't speak this way in sexually repressed post-war Germany.One last thing before I end my review: A relevant question to ask is why certain films are financed and not others?
Being of German blood and having a mother who actually lived through the experience of living in Berlin as the Russian armies marched in, I was looking forward to a film that mirrored the experiences that she lived through.
"If the Russians do just a fraction of what we did to them in the past four years," writes a woman in Berlin "every German will be dead." There are repeated rapes, day and night.
Others vow to survive whatever way they can; encouraging each other, finding protectors and treasuring the light where it can be found.Not only does A Woman in Berlin provide insight into the brutality of war from a woman's perspective who is at the epicenter of it, the film is alluring from all the other aspects that go into filmmaking Nina Hoss, who plays the main character, is fantastic and her award winning performance here provides a well deserved jolt to her career.
This is a story based on the diary of a woman living in Berlin at the time of its downfall in late April and early May of 1945 when the Red Army moved in for the final assault.
Unfortunately, as depicted here, much of their revenge is taken out on German women.The central character, who is called "Anonyma," decides that it would be in her best survival interests if she were to attach herself to the highest ranking army officer she could find.
Printed via Secker & Warburg (1955).I think it was closer to an ambivalent position, which would seem shameful but in Great Britain which hadn't gone through horrors of war comparable to mainland Europe there was still rationing the country was dealing with its declining empire,this I believe may have lead to a general sense of wishing to look ahead( together with a largely ambivalent feeling towards Germans sufferings).The general response from Russians I think would be obvious.I think it seems likely that the book with for obvious reasons difficulties including not having the author available ,tragically slipped through the cracks,as have many works in the past for different reasons .In regard to the film I think overall they did quite a good job ,It being a subject which can be handled badly and result in exploitation .or sometimes understate the reality and have an anaemic product,which looks insensitive and uncaring to the victims.There is also no eventual 'day in court'or cathartic victory or 'closure '.An alternative to this 'populist' approach may be something like Salo:120 days in Sodom which is revered by many critics but failed to reach the 'General public '..
German screenwriter and director Max Färberböck's third feature film which he co-wrote with actress and screenwriter Catharina Schuchmann, is based on an autobiographical book which was published anonymously in 1959 by an author who kept a diary whilst held captive by the communist national army of the Soviet Union called the Red Army.
During the Soviet occupation of Germany she is separated from Gerd and as numerous other German women systematically raped by Red Army soldiers, but due to her lingual skills she manages to seduce a Soviet major named Andreij Rybkin.Finely and engagingly directed by German filmmaker Max Färberböck, this finely paced and somewhat fictionalized tale which is narrated by the protagonist and mostly from her point of view, draws a moving portrayal of a German woman's involuntary relationships with various men and her ability to adapt and survive in times of war.
While notable for it's naturalistic milieu depictions, fine production design by German production designer and art director Uli Hanisch and Polish production designer, art director and actor Andrzey Halinski and cinematography by Swiss cinematographer Benedickt Neuenfels, this character-driven and narrative-driven story about a woman's experiences during the end of the Second World War depicts an empathic study of character and contains a great score by Polish composer Zbigniew Preisner.This biographical, conversational, historical and at times romantic drama about war crimes in Germany where an unspecific number of German women from varied age groups were raped both in connection with combat operations and during the Soviet occupation of Germany by members of the Soviet armed forces and in the aftermath died from the molestation they were exposed to, is set in the capital of Germany during the Battle of Berlin in 1945 and is impelled and reinforced by it's cogent narrative structure, substantial character development, multiple perspectives, the distinct acting performance by German actress Nina Hoss and the fine acting performances by Russian actor Yevgeni Sidikhin.
'A Woman in Berlin' is set in the last days of World War II as the Soviet Army wreaks vengeance upon the German civilian population following their invasion of the German capital.
The main recipient of the soldiers' wrath are the women of Berlin who they end up raping in great numbers.
'A Woman in Berlin' is based on the a true-life anonymous diary which was published in West Germany in 1959.
I question how the boyfriend could have ended up back home without being taken into custody by the Russians, who were rounding up all ex-soldiers and shipping them off to imprisonment in the Soviet Union.'A Woman in Berlin' commendably handles the rape scenes in a matter-of-fact way.
A German woman tells another that had the Russians did what (our) soldiers did to them, "we would all be dead by now".
While the rape of German women by the Russian soldiers was deplorable, the film could have made the soldiers' motivations for doing so, more understandable.'A Woman in Berlin' is a bit long and sometimes it's difficult to follow everything that's happening.
A well made German movie that touches with frankness a very delicate historical subject: the mass rape of German women by Soviet soldiers during and after the Battle of Berlin.
The movie, which has a good historical reconstruction of the times, is based on the memories of a woman, who choose to publish the book anonymously.
As a result, the book languished in obscurity for many decades afterward, and it was only republished, with great public success, in 2003, well after the Cold war ended and the author died.According to the movie, the Russians engaged in rape not because they were sadistic (very few of them are portrayed this way) but because they have a very natural urge for sex and they had few available Russian women around among the troops.
The Russian soldiers were so starved of sex that they even rape older German women in their 60s or even 70s.
As shown in this film, German women at first were obviously shocked at being raped, but later would more or less adapt to the situation and even joke about it, and seek powerful Russians as lovers, to protect themselves from mass rapes by drunken, lowly soldiers.
Personally, I don't think one can make a moral equivalence between the rape of German women (which is obviously reprehensible) and the genocidal behavior of the German army in the Eastern front during World War II, killing millions of innocent Jews and Slavs (the movie should have mentioned more about the latter, I think).
The intrigue of the movie is the setting, the war, the meeting of the different peoples (Germans and Russians).
It's worth watching for that.As history: It does present a story that needs to be told--the rape of the German women by the Russians.
Rape is prevalent in war, all nations were guilty of rape on the part of their men, but what the Russians did to the German women is beyond compare.
It also makes it clear that there is not one answer for every woman; in the film some of the victims lose their minds and end up killing themselves (or others); others find a sugar-daddy in the Russian army who gives them 'gifts' in exchange for protection (or at the very least, less violent sex).Personally, I see this film as a story about the way in which women cope with unimaginable, unjustifiable violence from their other halves.
I guess that just goes to show how male-dominated the film industry really is!!In one scene Anonyma confronts a major and asks him to do something to stop the rape of Berlin women.
Eine Frau in Berlin (2008) tells the story of a German woman (Nina Hoss) --who was identified as Marta Hillers only after her death--, a professional journalist who gets repeatedly raped during the Red Army occupation of Berlin.The anonymous journalist who can speak Russian and French writes the horrid wartime experiences she and the other German women had during the occupation.
The main problem with the movie is that it's actually a quasi love story - instead of a war drama - between a German woman and a Russian major.
The most common title of this film in English is "A Woman in Berlin," based on the published diaries of an anonymous female author in 1959.