Once in a while, it's good to be reminded that the Second World War is not just about explosions, but also about people living far from the fronts.
Since the end of the Second World War, Ruth (Jutta Lampe), a German-born secular-minded Jewish woman, has been living in New York City. On the day of her husband's death, she suddenly becomes orthodox-minded. Her relatives, especially her daughter Hannah (Maria Schrader), don't understand why Ruth expects them to stay away from their day job for 30 days or even to stop picking up the phone. In order to understand how Ruth is so shaken, Hannah decides to explore her mom's past after Ruth's cousin (Carola Regnier) had shown her a picture. In this picture, we see a young Ruth standing next to the gentile woman who saved her from the horrors of the Holocaust.
This is why Hannah decides to go to...
Since the end of the Second World War, Ruth (Jutta Lampe), a German-born secular-minded Jewish woman, has been living in New York City. On the day of her husband's death, she suddenly becomes orthodox-minded. Her relatives, especially her daughter Hannah (Maria Schrader), don't understand why Ruth expects them to stay away from their day job for 30 days or even to stop picking up the phone. In order to understand how Ruth is so shaken, Hannah decides to explore her mom's past after Ruth's cousin (Carola Regnier) had shown her a picture. In this picture, we see a young Ruth standing next to the gentile woman who saved her from the horrors of the Holocaust.
This is why Hannah decides to go to...
- 10/5/2010
- by anhkhoido@hotmail.com (Anh Khoi Do)
- The Cultural Post
Screened
Venice International Film Festival
More than 50 years after it ended, World War II continues to offer surprising stories that are ripe for literary and/or cinematic exploitation. The new Holocaust-themed film from German writer-director Margarethe von Trotta ("Rosa Luxemburg", "Marianne and Julianne: The German Sisters") commemorates a highly unusual -- and until recently, practically unknown -- resistance movement composed of Aryan women who were married to Jewish men. At heart a love story, "Rosenstrasse" benefits from strong, sympathetic performances from two actresses who play the same character at different ages. The film is a natural for viewers who embraced last year's foreign-language Oscar winner "Nowhere in Africa", but it might not get the wide exposure that film did unless it, too, receives a nomination.
Ruth Weinstein (Jutta Lampe), a Holocaust survivor who left Germany as a child and has never spoken of her past even to her now-adult children, becomes terribly depressed and uncommunicative when her husband dies. Less predictably, she demands an Orthodox funeral for him and suddenly disapproves of her daughter Hannah's impending marriage to a non-Jew, vowing to disown her if she goes through with it. Trying to find an explanation for her mother's drastic change of heart, Hannah (Maria Schrader) journeys to Berlin, where she tracks down a sprightly 90-year-old woman named Lena Fischer (Doris Schade), who reveals a remarkable tale.
The film then shifts to Lena's story. Born into an aristocratic Aryan family, talented pianist Lena (Katja Riemann) is disowned by her anti-Semitic parents when she marries a Jewish violinist. When her husband is arrested and sent to a holding center for transport to a labor or death camp, she refuses to idly sit by. She and dozens of other women in her same situation gather outside the building where the men -- as well as Jewish women married to Aryan men and the children of intermarriages -- are being held. The crowd grows into the hundreds as more and more Jews are arrested.
It is at the protest site that Lena meets 8-year-old Ruth (Svea Lohde), who hid as her mother was carted off by the Gestapo and has come looking for her. Ruth's mother has already been exterminated. Lena takes her in and raises her as her own child. Three years later, an aunt in America takes the child away from her second mother. Ruth never deals with either loss, and it is only when her husband dies that decades of grief finally spill over.
The film's title refers to the street in Berlin where some of the 5,000 Jewish men, women and children were held and where their families and friends gathered in an effort to win their release. As Jews married to "pure" Germans, the detainees had been exempted from arrest until February 1943, when the Fabrikation deportations began.
The Rosenstrasse resistance apparently did not come to light until a dozen years ago. Von Trotta was immediately intrigued. Her films invariably revolve around women and, more specifically, women whose personal stories fit into -- and, in fact, influence -- the broader scope of history.
The film seems destined to appeal more to a female audience, dealing as it does with such traditionally femme subjects as romance, mother-daughter relationships and solidarity among women. All of the actors acquit themselves well, with a special nod to the warm and vital Schade, the loyal and radiant Riemann and Schrader, who starred in another popular German Holocaust drama, 1998's "Aimee & Jaguar."
An expensive film to make by German standards, "Rosenstrasse" cuts effortlessly between the various time periods and settings. It also gets slightly schmaltzy in the scenes between the young Lena and her rather helpless husband. Like most films by von Trotta, however, it manages to remain fairly intelligent overall.
ROSENSTRASSE
Studio Hamburg Letterbox Filmproduktion, Tele Munchen, Get Reel Prods.
Credits:
Director: Margarethe von Trotta
Screenwriters: Margarethe von Trotta, Pamela Katz
Producers: Richard Schops, Henrik Meyer, Markus Zimmer
Director of photography: Franz Rath
Production designer: Heike Bauersfeld
Music: Loek Dikker
Co-producers: Volker Struycken, Errol Nayci
Costume designer: Ursula Eggert
Editor: Corina Dietz
Cast:
Lena Fischer: Katja Riemann
Hannah: Maria Schrader
Arthur von Eschenbach: Jurgen Vogel
Fabian Fischer: Martin Feifel
Lena (age 90): Doris Schade
Ruth (age 8): Svea Lohde
Ruth (adult): Jutta Lampe
Running time -- 136 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Venice International Film Festival
More than 50 years after it ended, World War II continues to offer surprising stories that are ripe for literary and/or cinematic exploitation. The new Holocaust-themed film from German writer-director Margarethe von Trotta ("Rosa Luxemburg", "Marianne and Julianne: The German Sisters") commemorates a highly unusual -- and until recently, practically unknown -- resistance movement composed of Aryan women who were married to Jewish men. At heart a love story, "Rosenstrasse" benefits from strong, sympathetic performances from two actresses who play the same character at different ages. The film is a natural for viewers who embraced last year's foreign-language Oscar winner "Nowhere in Africa", but it might not get the wide exposure that film did unless it, too, receives a nomination.
Ruth Weinstein (Jutta Lampe), a Holocaust survivor who left Germany as a child and has never spoken of her past even to her now-adult children, becomes terribly depressed and uncommunicative when her husband dies. Less predictably, she demands an Orthodox funeral for him and suddenly disapproves of her daughter Hannah's impending marriage to a non-Jew, vowing to disown her if she goes through with it. Trying to find an explanation for her mother's drastic change of heart, Hannah (Maria Schrader) journeys to Berlin, where she tracks down a sprightly 90-year-old woman named Lena Fischer (Doris Schade), who reveals a remarkable tale.
The film then shifts to Lena's story. Born into an aristocratic Aryan family, talented pianist Lena (Katja Riemann) is disowned by her anti-Semitic parents when she marries a Jewish violinist. When her husband is arrested and sent to a holding center for transport to a labor or death camp, she refuses to idly sit by. She and dozens of other women in her same situation gather outside the building where the men -- as well as Jewish women married to Aryan men and the children of intermarriages -- are being held. The crowd grows into the hundreds as more and more Jews are arrested.
It is at the protest site that Lena meets 8-year-old Ruth (Svea Lohde), who hid as her mother was carted off by the Gestapo and has come looking for her. Ruth's mother has already been exterminated. Lena takes her in and raises her as her own child. Three years later, an aunt in America takes the child away from her second mother. Ruth never deals with either loss, and it is only when her husband dies that decades of grief finally spill over.
The film's title refers to the street in Berlin where some of the 5,000 Jewish men, women and children were held and where their families and friends gathered in an effort to win their release. As Jews married to "pure" Germans, the detainees had been exempted from arrest until February 1943, when the Fabrikation deportations began.
The Rosenstrasse resistance apparently did not come to light until a dozen years ago. Von Trotta was immediately intrigued. Her films invariably revolve around women and, more specifically, women whose personal stories fit into -- and, in fact, influence -- the broader scope of history.
The film seems destined to appeal more to a female audience, dealing as it does with such traditionally femme subjects as romance, mother-daughter relationships and solidarity among women. All of the actors acquit themselves well, with a special nod to the warm and vital Schade, the loyal and radiant Riemann and Schrader, who starred in another popular German Holocaust drama, 1998's "Aimee & Jaguar."
An expensive film to make by German standards, "Rosenstrasse" cuts effortlessly between the various time periods and settings. It also gets slightly schmaltzy in the scenes between the young Lena and her rather helpless husband. Like most films by von Trotta, however, it manages to remain fairly intelligent overall.
ROSENSTRASSE
Studio Hamburg Letterbox Filmproduktion, Tele Munchen, Get Reel Prods.
Credits:
Director: Margarethe von Trotta
Screenwriters: Margarethe von Trotta, Pamela Katz
Producers: Richard Schops, Henrik Meyer, Markus Zimmer
Director of photography: Franz Rath
Production designer: Heike Bauersfeld
Music: Loek Dikker
Co-producers: Volker Struycken, Errol Nayci
Costume designer: Ursula Eggert
Editor: Corina Dietz
Cast:
Lena Fischer: Katja Riemann
Hannah: Maria Schrader
Arthur von Eschenbach: Jurgen Vogel
Fabian Fischer: Martin Feifel
Lena (age 90): Doris Schade
Ruth (age 8): Svea Lohde
Ruth (adult): Jutta Lampe
Running time -- 136 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Screened
Venice International Film Festival
More than 50 years after it ended, World War II continues to offer surprising stories that are ripe for literary and/or cinematic exploitation. The new Holocaust-themed film from German writer-director Margarethe von Trotta ("Rosa Luxemburg", "Marianne and Julianne: The German Sisters") commemorates a highly unusual -- and until recently, practically unknown -- resistance movement composed of Aryan women who were married to Jewish men. At heart a love story, "Rosenstrasse" benefits from strong, sympathetic performances from two actresses who play the same character at different ages. The film is a natural for viewers who embraced last year's foreign-language Oscar winner "Nowhere in Africa", but it might not get the wide exposure that film did unless it, too, receives a nomination.
Ruth Weinstein (Jutta Lampe), a Holocaust survivor who left Germany as a child and has never spoken of her past even to her now-adult children, becomes terribly depressed and uncommunicative when her husband dies. Less predictably, she demands an Orthodox funeral for him and suddenly disapproves of her daughter Hannah's impending marriage to a non-Jew, vowing to disown her if she goes through with it. Trying to find an explanation for her mother's drastic change of heart, Hannah (Maria Schrader) journeys to Berlin, where she tracks down a sprightly 90-year-old woman named Lena Fischer (Doris Schade), who reveals a remarkable tale.
The film then shifts to Lena's story. Born into an aristocratic Aryan family, talented pianist Lena (Katja Riemann) is disowned by her anti-Semitic parents when she marries a Jewish violinist. When her husband is arrested and sent to a holding center for transport to a labor or death camp, she refuses to idly sit by. She and dozens of other women in her same situation gather outside the building where the men -- as well as Jewish women married to Aryan men and the children of intermarriages -- are being held. The crowd grows into the hundreds as more and more Jews are arrested.
It is at the protest site that Lena meets 8-year-old Ruth (Svea Lohde), who hid as her mother was carted off by the Gestapo and has come looking for her. Ruth's mother has already been exterminated. Lena takes her in and raises her as her own child. Three years later, an aunt in America takes the child away from her second mother. Ruth never deals with either loss, and it is only when her husband dies that decades of grief finally spill over.
The film's title refers to the street in Berlin where some of the 5,000 Jewish men, women and children were held and where their families and friends gathered in an effort to win their release. As Jews married to "pure" Germans, the detainees had been exempted from arrest until February 1943, when the Fabrikation deportations began.
The Rosenstrasse resistance apparently did not come to light until a dozen years ago. Von Trotta was immediately intrigued. Her films invariably revolve around women and, more specifically, women whose personal stories fit into -- and, in fact, influence -- the broader scope of history.
The film seems destined to appeal more to a female audience, dealing as it does with such traditionally femme subjects as romance, mother-daughter relationships and solidarity among women. All of the actors acquit themselves well, with a special nod to the warm and vital Schade, the loyal and radiant Riemann and Schrader, who starred in another popular German Holocaust drama, 1998's "Aimee & Jaguar."
An expensive film to make by German standards, "Rosenstrasse" cuts effortlessly between the various time periods and settings. It also gets slightly schmaltzy in the scenes between the young Lena and her rather helpless husband. Like most films by von Trotta, however, it manages to remain fairly intelligent overall.
ROSENSTRASSE
Studio Hamburg Letterbox Filmproduktion, Tele Munchen, Get Reel Prods.
Credits:
Director: Margarethe von Trotta
Screenwriters: Margarethe von Trotta, Pamela Katz
Producers: Richard Schops, Henrik Meyer, Markus Zimmer
Director of photography: Franz Rath
Production designer: Heike Bauersfeld
Music: Loek Dikker
Co-producers: Volker Struycken, Errol Nayci
Costume designer: Ursula Eggert
Editor: Corina Dietz
Cast:
Lena Fischer: Katja Riemann
Hannah: Maria Schrader
Arthur von Eschenbach: Jurgen Vogel
Fabian Fischer: Martin Feifel
Lena (age 90): Doris Schade
Ruth (age 8): Svea Lohde
Ruth (adult): Jutta Lampe
Running time -- 136 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Venice International Film Festival
More than 50 years after it ended, World War II continues to offer surprising stories that are ripe for literary and/or cinematic exploitation. The new Holocaust-themed film from German writer-director Margarethe von Trotta ("Rosa Luxemburg", "Marianne and Julianne: The German Sisters") commemorates a highly unusual -- and until recently, practically unknown -- resistance movement composed of Aryan women who were married to Jewish men. At heart a love story, "Rosenstrasse" benefits from strong, sympathetic performances from two actresses who play the same character at different ages. The film is a natural for viewers who embraced last year's foreign-language Oscar winner "Nowhere in Africa", but it might not get the wide exposure that film did unless it, too, receives a nomination.
Ruth Weinstein (Jutta Lampe), a Holocaust survivor who left Germany as a child and has never spoken of her past even to her now-adult children, becomes terribly depressed and uncommunicative when her husband dies. Less predictably, she demands an Orthodox funeral for him and suddenly disapproves of her daughter Hannah's impending marriage to a non-Jew, vowing to disown her if she goes through with it. Trying to find an explanation for her mother's drastic change of heart, Hannah (Maria Schrader) journeys to Berlin, where she tracks down a sprightly 90-year-old woman named Lena Fischer (Doris Schade), who reveals a remarkable tale.
The film then shifts to Lena's story. Born into an aristocratic Aryan family, talented pianist Lena (Katja Riemann) is disowned by her anti-Semitic parents when she marries a Jewish violinist. When her husband is arrested and sent to a holding center for transport to a labor or death camp, she refuses to idly sit by. She and dozens of other women in her same situation gather outside the building where the men -- as well as Jewish women married to Aryan men and the children of intermarriages -- are being held. The crowd grows into the hundreds as more and more Jews are arrested.
It is at the protest site that Lena meets 8-year-old Ruth (Svea Lohde), who hid as her mother was carted off by the Gestapo and has come looking for her. Ruth's mother has already been exterminated. Lena takes her in and raises her as her own child. Three years later, an aunt in America takes the child away from her second mother. Ruth never deals with either loss, and it is only when her husband dies that decades of grief finally spill over.
The film's title refers to the street in Berlin where some of the 5,000 Jewish men, women and children were held and where their families and friends gathered in an effort to win their release. As Jews married to "pure" Germans, the detainees had been exempted from arrest until February 1943, when the Fabrikation deportations began.
The Rosenstrasse resistance apparently did not come to light until a dozen years ago. Von Trotta was immediately intrigued. Her films invariably revolve around women and, more specifically, women whose personal stories fit into -- and, in fact, influence -- the broader scope of history.
The film seems destined to appeal more to a female audience, dealing as it does with such traditionally femme subjects as romance, mother-daughter relationships and solidarity among women. All of the actors acquit themselves well, with a special nod to the warm and vital Schade, the loyal and radiant Riemann and Schrader, who starred in another popular German Holocaust drama, 1998's "Aimee & Jaguar."
An expensive film to make by German standards, "Rosenstrasse" cuts effortlessly between the various time periods and settings. It also gets slightly schmaltzy in the scenes between the young Lena and her rather helpless husband. Like most films by von Trotta, however, it manages to remain fairly intelligent overall.
ROSENSTRASSE
Studio Hamburg Letterbox Filmproduktion, Tele Munchen, Get Reel Prods.
Credits:
Director: Margarethe von Trotta
Screenwriters: Margarethe von Trotta, Pamela Katz
Producers: Richard Schops, Henrik Meyer, Markus Zimmer
Director of photography: Franz Rath
Production designer: Heike Bauersfeld
Music: Loek Dikker
Co-producers: Volker Struycken, Errol Nayci
Costume designer: Ursula Eggert
Editor: Corina Dietz
Cast:
Lena Fischer: Katja Riemann
Hannah: Maria Schrader
Arthur von Eschenbach: Jurgen Vogel
Fabian Fischer: Martin Feifel
Lena (age 90): Doris Schade
Ruth (age 8): Svea Lohde
Ruth (adult): Jutta Lampe
Running time -- 136 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 9/19/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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