Murrosiässä

"Maedchen in Uniform" (German, 1931): I viewed this film in an "unrestored" version, yet I was still fascinated by it on a number of levels. The photography was wonderful – with well thought out set shots full of light and dark diagonal patterns illustrating late Expressionism/early Art Deco, and close ups of the girls and women using equally beautiful lighting, often with soft focus filters. A little knowledge of Euro/German history was helpful – since this movie was banned in Germany (just prior to Hitler's coming into full power), and there is a lesbian angle to the story. (Yet, having lived in Europe, I was NOT prone to assigning every hand-holding, dance, or goodnight kiss to lesbianism.) The Prussian attitudes were represented by the older women still in power, and the "new" German attitudes were given to the young girls, the "hope" of the future. Germany couldn't have been in much more turmoil at the time, and was cranking up towards the war to make up for the last war, fascism, racial purification, intolerance, and an even deeper sense of conformity. This film is loaded with the era's "issues", and not necessarily supportive of where Germany was headed.