A wonderful movie, well directed and very well acted (main characters, especially Anonyma, played by Nina Hoss, and the Russian major, played by Evgeny Sidikhin, were simply superb). I loved that the Russian and German characters are colored as human and not in simple black and white. It is very unfortunate that this film did not get more attention and a wider distribution! I was lucky enough to see it last year at the Toronto Film Festival. As a holder of a Ph.D. in history I was immediately intrigued: I knew about the events depicted in the film and I was concerned about how such brutal rapes would be shown but the director handled it perfectly, emphasizing that rape is more about violence and terror than about sex. The enquiring mind, the emotional understatement, and the moral complexity of this film got unfortunately overlooked by the Academy, possibly because of the "take-no-side" approach to its subject matter. I recommend this movie highly to anyone with interest in history, women's issues, and cinematics. At the same time, it is not for viewers who cannot handle the human reality in its darkest form.
Review of A Woman in Berlin
