Die Goldene Stadt is a set in a dream world that never was. Like a fairy tale, albeit horrifically banal and naive even for a fairy tale, it was primarily made to make war torn Germany forget about the destructiveness that the madness of the third Reich meant, not just for the numerous victims of nazi persecution but for Germans as well. When the movie started screening in the state controlled cinemas in early 1943, the tide had turned clearly against Germany and it was becoming pain fully evident for most Germans despite the enormous propaganda machine that was so representative for nazi-Germany.
This horribly boring film enabled war weary Germans to forget about war and leap into a world so surreal it made any episode of the X-files seem like a trustworthy documentary.
Swedish "actress" Kristina Söderbaum makes a laughable effort in her role as Anna Jobst, a woman whose naive take on the world for some reason, in the end, makes her commit suicide. Not a minute too soon, although for the viewer the reasons seem to be missing due to the Clumsy editing that director Veit Harlan, known nazi propaganda filmmaker, performed in a haste that managed to make this incredibly poor film even worse, quite a feat.
It could be summed up to be a stupid movie for stupid people, made by stupid people. That would however be far too simple to just dismiss this movie as a harmless movie. The plot itself is harmless, the context in which the movie was made and its purpose makes it a terrible symbol of how some people are capable of ignoring the world falling to pieces around them and happily settling for lies fed to them.
After her career in nazi-Germany with Veit Harlan, Kristina could never return to Sweden or even leave Germany due to her infamous collaboration with Harlan and his propaganda films and no doubt, due to her obvious total lack of acting skills. She stayed and lived a long life without any other than minor roles in minor productions.
This horribly boring film enabled war weary Germans to forget about war and leap into a world so surreal it made any episode of the X-files seem like a trustworthy documentary.
Swedish "actress" Kristina Söderbaum makes a laughable effort in her role as Anna Jobst, a woman whose naive take on the world for some reason, in the end, makes her commit suicide. Not a minute too soon, although for the viewer the reasons seem to be missing due to the Clumsy editing that director Veit Harlan, known nazi propaganda filmmaker, performed in a haste that managed to make this incredibly poor film even worse, quite a feat.
It could be summed up to be a stupid movie for stupid people, made by stupid people. That would however be far too simple to just dismiss this movie as a harmless movie. The plot itself is harmless, the context in which the movie was made and its purpose makes it a terrible symbol of how some people are capable of ignoring the world falling to pieces around them and happily settling for lies fed to them.
After her career in nazi-Germany with Veit Harlan, Kristina could never return to Sweden or even leave Germany due to her infamous collaboration with Harlan and his propaganda films and no doubt, due to her obvious total lack of acting skills. She stayed and lived a long life without any other than minor roles in minor productions.