A nameless woman keeps a diary as the Russians invade Berlin in the spring of 1945. She is in her early 30s, a patriotic journalist with international credentials; her husband, Gerd, a writer, is an officer at the Russian front. She speaks Russian and, for a day or two after the invasion, keeps herself safe, but then the rapes begin. She resolves to control her fate
Sometimes a movie based on true events is forceful out of all proportion to its middling presentation.
– Peter Rainer,
Christian Science Monitor,
21 Aug 2009
fresh:
The film is well-acted, with restraint, by Hoss and Sidikhin. The writer and director, Max Faerberboeck, employs a level gaze and avoids for the most part artificial sentimentality. The physical production is convincing.
– Roger Ebert,
Chicago Sun-Times,
24 Sep 2009
fresh:
No one is guiltless-not the Russian commander (Yevgeny Sidikhin) who takes the heroine as his lover, nor her bourgeois landlady (Fassbinder alumnus Irm Hermann), who welcomes the occupiers for their black market goods.
– Andrea Gronvall,
Chicago Reader,
2 Oct 2009
fresh:
A clear-eyed portrait of a highly charged chapter in Germany's history, a history that once again proves rewarding fodder for an alert artistic imagination.