In 1980s
East Germany, Barbara is a Berlin doctor banished to a
country medical clinic for applying for an exit visa.
Deeply unhappy with her reassignment and fearful of her
co-workers as possible Stasi informants, Barbara stays
aloof, especially from the good natured clinic head,
Andre. Instead, Barbara snatches moments with her lover
as she secretly prepares to defect one day. Despite her
plans, Barbara learns more about her life that puts her
desires and the people around her in a new light. With
her changing perspective, Barbara finds herself facing a
painful moral dilemma that forces her to choose what she
values.
A glimpse
into the DDR way of solving problems
by OJT
The clever doctor Barbara Wolf is by the authorities
placed out in the provincial parts of the Eastern German
Republic, die DDR. We''re in 1980, nine years before the
fall of the Berlin wall and the Iron curtain. She has a
lover from the free West Germany, and wants to move to
the West, which is out if question for the paranoid
communist government, which became famous for the
surveillance techniques and spying systems. It''s later
revealed that 1/7th of the population was forced to spy
on others, even family members, to prevent opposition,
as well as getting too much contact with Western ideas
and ideologies.
In the province she meets another clever doctor placed
in the province after a mishap pending at a Berlin
hospital. Or is this just a cover up story of a spying
agent? Barbara can''t tell. She knows there are possible
spies all over. She rightfully trusts no one. For her
it''s an impossible idea for her lover to move over to
Eastern Germany, as opposed to her getting to the West.
For those living today it''s almost impossible to
comprehend how it was like to live in DDR (Eastern
Germany) during the communist years. It was a society
impossible to imagine, only possibly equaled today by
North Korea. The state intelligence police, Stasi, was
almost everywhere, planting spies and surveillance
equipment.
This film doesn''t explain the system. You''re just put
right into it. This might make it hard to understand
without having the knowledge of how extreme this society
was, almost like George Orwell''s great and scary novel
"1984" in real life. Barbara is under constant
surveillance when she''s not far away from people. She''s
so suspected to do illegal things, that she frequently
body and anally strip searched when the Stasi visits
her.
I visited Eastern Germany 1988, before the wall came
down. The visit marked me for life, both as a Westerner
and a Norwegian being able to visit ad a tourist, where
they equaled the value of Western currency marks to the
Eastern marks, though only valued 1/20th. Still they
thought they could keep the longing for the Western
freedom from being planted into the DDR-inhabitants. I
visited the concentration camp Sachsenhausen, and I
experienced the railways where there was no smile to
see, the feel of total depression and bleak or hardly
any colored lights, as an opposite to the sparkling neon
lights of the West, and the total surveillance of the
center of Berlin. No western lyrics and western music
was allowed, hardly any Western cars. If it could have
any kind of opposition interpreted into it, or dreams of
the Western freedom, it was disallowed. If you tried to
flee to the West, you would be instantly shot! I was
terrified for four hours in my last trip back to Western
Berlin was halted for four hours when they took my
passport and ran away with it.
Today it seems we''re not afraid of being under constant
surveillance. This is just another reminder of how
terrible it s not to have a free will, and not have the
right to your own life. It''s so inhumane and
humiliating. But we''re in our way right into the same
kind of society.
It''s a very god film, but the understated telling and
explaining is really too difficult to understand for
most today. When Barbara is giving away her opportunity
to flee, she''s giving up her dreams of freedom. I think
most without having the background to understand this,
will understand the film. For most it will seem slow and
leave too many questions. So read yourself up on what
the DDR-politics where before you see this.
And remember that freedom is something we can''t give
away! Ever!
