REVIEWS Barbara REVIEWED BY JONATHAN ROMNEY
Berlin auteur Christian Petzold offers a dispas- sionate but involving view of the repressions of the old East Germany from a small-town perspective in Barbara. The drama, which offers a mesmeris- ingly taut showcase for Petzold’s regular muse, Nina Hoss, is more narratively conventional than some of his films and certainly less glacial than, say, his 2007 Berlinale competitor Yella. The general interest in this period of modern
Germany, boosted internationally by The Lives Of Others, will give Barbara upmarket sales appeal, though some will be cautious of the extremely slow-burning drama and emotional restraint. For those who like this sort of hyper-controlled, hugely intelligent work, Barbara will be a must. The time is 1980, and Barbara Wolff (Hoss) —
as the narrative reveals gradually — is a doctor who has applied for an exit visa from the GDR and, as a punishment, has been transferred from her prestigious post in Berlin to a small hospital in the country. At her new workplace, Barbara is viewed with suspicion as a haughty Berliner by her new colleagues, though amiable young doctor André (Zehrfeld) takes an interest in her, encour- aging Barbara not to be so separate. Barbara knows the game too well, though, and is under no illusion about André’s role as an
observer reporting to Stasi officer Klaus Schütz (Bock). The latter appears regularly at the shoddy apartment she has been allocated, to oversee searches of the premises and, through a female officer, Barbara’s body. Ill at ease in her new life, Barbara nevertheless finds some sanity in clandes- tine trysts with her lover (Waschke) from the West, and hopes of somehow getting out to join him. A devoted medic, she applies herself to the care
of her patients, in particular Stella (Bauer), a preg- nant woman who has contracted meningitis after her latest escape from a nearby ‘workhouse’ — a euphemism, Barbara says, for ‘socialist concentra- tion camp’. As the relationship between Barbara and André develops, oscillating between warm and prickly, Barbara is finally forced to make a decision about her own fate — in a nicely underplayed final
COMPETITION
Ger. 2012. 105mins Director/screenplay Christian Petzold Production company Schramm Film Koerner & Weber International sales The Match Factory,
info@matchfactory.de Producers Florian Koerner von Gustorf, Michael Weber Cinematography Hans Fromm Editor Bettina Böhler Production designer KD Gruber Music Stefan Will Main cast Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld, Jasna Fritzi Bauer, Mark Waschke, Rainer Bock
act that, though it is worked up to slowly, is utterly edge-of-the-seat when we reach it. This film too could almost have been titled The
Lives Of Others, since fish-out-of-water Barbara not only has to adjust to living like those around her, but also play her own hopes for freedom against the needs of those for whom she cares. The tightly cali- brated action takes place largely in a claustrophobic town and its windblown rural environs, with Pet- zold making dramatic use of Barbara’s pokey flat and of the echoing hospital corridors. In visual terms, the film is less glacially stylised than some of Petzold’s others, with DoP Hans Fromm using warm colours that infuse the film with some heat, offsetting the chillier edge of its narrative approach. Ronald Zehrfeld — looking a ringer for a
younger, tubbier Russell Crowe — is an immensely likeable presence, his affability subtly playing up the enigmatic grey areas in André’s personality. And Hoss — here in her fifth lead for Petzold — unfolds her character magnificently, starting off by giving Barbara a frosty mask of total detachment, then slowly thawing her until the contradictions in her compassionate, defiant personality flicker with compelling subtlety between the lines of the action. References to Ivan Turgenev and Mark Twain, and a virtuoso deconstruction of a Rem- brandt painting, make this literate, teasing work one that will surely reward repeated viewings.
SCREEN SCORE ★★★★
February 15, 2012 09:00 h Berlinale Palast - Press Screening (English subtitles)
16.30 h Berlinale Palast - Gala Screening (German subtitles, translation via head- phones available)
February 16, 2012 09:30 h Friedrichstadt-Palast - Repetition screening (English subtitles)
20:30 h Friedrichstadt-Palast - Repetition screening (German subtitles)
February 19, 2012 22:15 h Haus der Berliner Festspiele - Repetition screening (German subtitles)
WORLD SALES The Match Factory
at Berlinale
February 9th - February 19th, 2012 Martin-Gropius-Building, Booth #35 Email:
info@matchfactory.de www.the-match-factory.com
n 12 Screen International at the Berlinale February 12, 2012
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