by Christine Westwood

Year:  2024

Director:  Andreas Dresen

Rated:  MA

Release:  17 October 2024

Distributor: Palace Films

Running time: 124 minutes

Worth: $15.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth

Cast:
Liv Lisa Fries, Johannes Hegemann, Emma Bading, Lena Urzendowsky, Lisa Wagner, Alexander Scheer

Intro:
The blending of personal desire and political idealism is beautifully explored ...

We are first introduced to Hilde (Liv Lisa Fries of Babylon Berlin) as she is crouched in the earth of her lush family garden. She is pregnant and eating strawberries, one of many moments when we see her savouring the beauties of nature, the small sensual experiences that make a rich life. This introduction is important as it shows Hilde’s capacity for being present and alive. It nourishes her through a glorious, love and sun filled summer in the country and the horrible contrast of her life in a Nazi prison.

Her arrest and interrogation occur in the first scenes of director Andreas Dresen’s film, based on the real history of Hilde and Hans Coppi, who were arrested as traitors to Hitler’s regime after Hans used a radio to send illegal messages. They become involved in the anti-Nazi resistance, with a group of young people who were known as the “Red Orchestra”. The pair were incarcerated in Berlin-Plötzensee prison, as were other members of the resistance group.

There is a profound observation of compassion that runs through the narrative. Among the supporting characters of prison guards, police, nurses and pastor, many demonstrate decency and humanity in the hell that is the prison system. An offered sandwich, respectful conversation, and more concrete help and advocacy. Hilde needs every bit of it to survive as long as she does, and we as an audience need it for the often-gruelling viewing experience Dresen puts us through. There are definitely images and moments that you’ll wish you’d never seen.

“Sparing anyone was never interesting to me,” Dresen says in the press notes. “When you set out to bring a story like this to life, it’s all about finding a kind of inner truth. Sometimes, to show what’s important to me, I need to use more radical means. For example, giving birth to her son was extremely tough for Hilde Coppi… Or when the women queue up in the prison yard for one of them to be taken to execution every three minutes – as a filmmaker it can’t just be a sidenote. I have to find an accurate language and an aesthetic form for it. So, there are some scenes in which I decided as a director to slow down the pace, sometimes even agonizingly.”

The other device that gets us through is the film structure, where we get relief from the bleak prison scenes in the regular flashbacks to the characters’ life of freedom in gorgeous countryside, and to Hilda’s growing love affair with Hans. Hilde is defined as a reserved, serious young woman, nicknamed ‘The Governess’ by the more worldly, bohemian ‘Red Orchestra’ set that became her friends.

The film offers an insight into how a resistance movement grew in the politically earnest yet playful lifestyle of a group of young people subject to but disagreeing with Hitler’s rise to power. With their youth, ideals and partying spirit, they could be a group of students and young professionals in many time periods and places. As Dresen explains, “the ‘Red Orchestra’ wasn’t a well-organized and bourgeois resistance group, but a socially diverse, motley group of people from different social backgrounds.”

Fries embodies Hilde with a convincing blend of strength and delicacy. In spite of the terrible circumstances, she isn’t overplayed as a victim. Her apparent naivety and innocence at the start are neatly unravelled as more details of her political acts emerge through the flashbacks, and there is a powerful core at the heart of her character that drives the film in a way that’s never cliched. Dresen says of Fries’ performance that “she had to slip inside the skin of a much more restrained and thwarted character than she herself is. A character who experiences things you don’t even want to imagine. That’s a huge feat for an actress.”

At a key moment, Hilde speaks of her desire to get past fear and to truly live and love. She is tested to the limit and beyond, but the choices she makes are based on her courage to go for what she wants. The blending of personal desire and political idealism is beautifully explored in many of the characters, with Dresen sticking to his remit to express the humanity of these people in pleasure, fear and pain.

The ‘Red Orchestra’ group are fleshed out by strong performances, especially Emma Bading as the model and party girl Ina and Lena Urzendowsky as the emotionally vulnerable Liane who Hilde supports in prison. Lisa Wagner as prison guard Annaleise Khan makes the most of portraying a young woman struggling to find a balance between carrying out the cruel dictates of her job while grappling with her own humanity.

Seeing the terrible circumstances of Hilde’s imprisonment, it seems astonishing that the baby she was pregnant with in the first scene is the now 80-year-old Hans Coppi Jnr, who was able to attend an early screening of this film of his parents’ story.

“In a way, he plays a part in the movie, a leading role even,” Dresen explains. “Hans is the living link between the past and our day and age. When he told me after the screening that he had now gotten to know his parents in a totally new way, I was very touched and pleased.”

7.5Good
score
7.5
Shares:

Leave a Reply