This is a highly unusual film from just before the Nazi era. It's about a Prussian-style girls school and the difficulty a new arrival has at fitting in to the stupidly strict system (i.e., rules just for the sake of having rules). This difficulty is remediated, somewhat, by a kind housemother. In this relationship, there are strong hints of lesbianism, though considering this is the early 1930s, a modern viewer may find the treatment of this taboo a little vague and silly--though not nearly as silly as the excised gay scene from Spartacus. For this reason alone, it is a very curious movie. I actually would have found it perhaps more interesting if they had either allowed this relationship to evolve more or if they had helped the young infatuated girl to understand how these feelings are, perhaps, related to her loss of her mother and her own pubescence (another parallel issue in the movie). Oh well. This isn't really a complaint, just curiosity.
Late in the movie there is a dandy climax (cinematic, not sexual). The young girl is pushed and pushed unmercifully by the draconian headmistress until she attempts suicide. I liked this touch, but wonder how the story might have been different if either the girl HAD actually died. Also, after she is saved, the movie ends with the headmistress visibly shaken--but ends there. I wanted to see what would happen next in the mind of the movie's writers and director.
Oh well, enough of my ranting. It's a good, though not great movie with themes that make it either an adult film or at least one you should think twice before letting your teens see it alone (maybe see it with them and discuss the images instead).
Late in the movie there is a dandy climax (cinematic, not sexual). The young girl is pushed and pushed unmercifully by the draconian headmistress until she attempts suicide. I liked this touch, but wonder how the story might have been different if either the girl HAD actually died. Also, after she is saved, the movie ends with the headmistress visibly shaken--but ends there. I wanted to see what would happen next in the mind of the movie's writers and director.
Oh well, enough of my ranting. It's a good, though not great movie with themes that make it either an adult film or at least one you should think twice before letting your teens see it alone (maybe see it with them and discuss the images instead).