Rosenstrasse (2003)

After the death of her father, Hannah becomes concerned with the strange behavior of her mother. As her mother's troubled childhood is revealed, Hannah realizes how little she ever knew.

Director:

Margarethe von Trotta

Writers:

Pamela Katz, Margarethe von Trotta

Stars:

Katja Riemann, Maria Schrader, Jutta Lampe

7 wins & 3 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Katja Riemann	...	Lena Fischer - age 33
Maria Schrader	...	Hannah Weinstein
Doris Schade	...	Lena Fischer - age 90
Jutta Lampe	...	Ruth Weinstein - age 60
Svea Lohde	...	Ruth - age 8
Jürgen Vogel	...	Arthur von Eschenbach
Martin Feifel	...	Fabian Fischer
Fedja van Huêt	...	Luis Marquez
Carola Regnier	...	Rachel Rosenbauer
Plien van Bennekom	...	Marian
Romijn Conen	...	Ben
Julia Eggert	...	Emily
Thekla Reuten	...	Klara Singer
Jutta Wachowiak	...	Frau Goldberg
Jan Decleir	...	Nathan Goldberg

Storyline

When Ruth's husband dies in New York, in 2000, she imposes strict Jewish mourning, which puzzles her children. A stranger comes to the house - Ruth's cousin - with a picture of Ruth, age 8, in Berlin, with a woman the cousin says helped Ruth escape. Hannah, Ruth's daughter engaged to a gentile, goes to Berlin to find the woman, Lena Fisher, now 90. Posing as a journalist investigating intermarriage, Hannah interviews Lena who tells the story of a week in 1943 when the Jewish husbands of Aryan women were detained in a building on Rosenstrasse. The women gather daily for word of their husbands. The film goes back and forth to tell Ruth and Lena's story. How will it affect Hannah?

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Plot Keywords:

jewish | holocaust | historical event | 1940s | world war two | 

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Genres:

Drama | War

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material, some violence and brief drug content

Details

Country:

Germany Netherlands

Language:

German English

Release Date:

18 September 2003 (Germany)

Also Known As:

Kvinnorna på Rosenstrasse

Filming Locations:

Berlin, Germany

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

$45,024 (USA) (20 August 2004)

Gross:

$732,036 (USA) (7 January 2005)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Studio Hamburg Letterbox Filmproduktion, Tele München Fernseh Produktionsgesellschaft (TMG), Get Reel Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

136 min 136 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Nathan Stoltzfus' book "Resistance of the Heart: Intermarriage and the Rosenstrasse Protest in Nazi Germany" (1997) was published after Margarethe von Trotta started work on the film. It is possible that it was used as source material for some of the characters and incidents in the film.

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Connections

References Ein Walzer mit dir (1943)

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Soundtracks

"Und wieder geht ein schöner Tag zu Ende"
Composed by Gerhard Winkler
Lyrics by Bruno Elsner
© 1937 by WIENER BOHÈME VERLAG GMBH
(BMG MUSIC PUBLISHING GERMANY), München
From the CD "Ich träum' von einer Stunde"
Courtesy of UBM MEDIA GMBH

User Reviews

If you are interested in more than only the gunfights during WWII, than you should give this a try.

I'm always surprised about how many times you'll see something about World War 2 on the German national television. You would think they don't like to open old wounds, but there isn't a week that goes by without a documentary or a movie about the horror and atrocities of this war. Perhaps it's a way of dealing with their past, I don't know, but you sure can't blame them of ignoring what happened. And it has to be said: most of those documentaries are really worth a watch because they never try to gloss over the truth and the same can be said about their movies (think for instance about "Der Untergang" or "The Downfall" as you might now it) which are also very realistic.

One of those movies is "Rosenstrasse". It tells a true story and deals with the subject of the mixed marriages during the war, even though the movie starts with a family in the USA, at the present day. After Hannah's father died, her mother all a sudden turned into an orthodox Jew even though she hasn't been very religious before. She doesn't know where the strange behavior of her mother comes from, but as she starts digging in her mother's troubled childhood, Hannah understands how little she has ever known about her mother's past.

The fact that this movie deals with the subject of the mixed marriages during the Nazi regime is already quite surprising. For as far as I know, there hasn't been another movie that deals with this subject. (For those who didn't know this yet: Being married to a so-called pure Aryian man or woman meant for many Jews that they weren't immediately sent to one of the concentration camps, but that they had to work in a factory). But it does not only tell something about the problems of the mixed marriages, it also gives a good idea of how these people were often seen by their own parents and relatives. How difficult it sometimes was for them during the Nazi regime and how these people, most of the time women, did everything within their power to free their men, once they were captured and locked away in for instance the Rosenstrasse...

The acting is really good and the story is very well written, although the way it was presented in the beginning didn't really do it for me (and that's exactly the only part that you'll get to see in the trailer). Perhaps it's just me, but I would have left out a big part of what happens in the present day. At least of the part that is situated in the USA, because the part where Hannah goes to Berlin and talks to someone who knows more about her mother's past, definitely works.

If you are interested in everything that has something to do with the Second World War, and if you aren't necessarily looking for a lot of action shots, than this is definitely a movie you should see. This isn't a movie in which you'll see any battles or gunfights, but it certainly is an interesting movie, because it gives you an idea about an aspect of the war only little is known of. I give it an 8/10.