What sets this apart from your typical Jew/Nazi movie was that it was a love affair between a wife of a Nazi hero and a Jewish girl who does not wear a star and is an assistant to the newpaper editor of Berlins biggest paper.
The courage and nerve these young kids had is breathtaking and the disaster that they befell at the hands of the Nazis devastated me more than most typical Nazi movies. At some point I had a revelation. I understood that there was no imbalance of power. I realized that the Nazis were not all powerful as I had presumed. All around them were people of the same, if not more strength, opposing them. The resistance was as cunning and determined as the Nazis - it was inevitable that good would win. There is a line in the movie where one girl is telling another girl who is reprimanding her for something, "You did not create the world - God did." Wonderful way to say - you can't judge me.
The love making scene is hard to watch. Don't get me wrong - I am not prejudice - it is hard to watch because the Lilly is so scared and beaten (psychologically, physically) by Nazi men and when the Jewish girl (Felice) kneels at Lilly's feet and just holds her ankles and rests her cheek on the Lilly's calves you are in as much pain as the Lilly. The actress who plays Lilly just breaks your heart because her whole body is wracked in these hysterical shivers and no words. It is the old saying put before you in the form of these two women - one Nazi, one Jewish - that `the master becomes the slave' And of course it symbolized the whole Nazi situation. It is what Shakespear tried to to teach us in MacBeth - the blood was so much more powerful than the knife.
The courage and nerve these young kids had is breathtaking and the disaster that they befell at the hands of the Nazis devastated me more than most typical Nazi movies. At some point I had a revelation. I understood that there was no imbalance of power. I realized that the Nazis were not all powerful as I had presumed. All around them were people of the same, if not more strength, opposing them. The resistance was as cunning and determined as the Nazis - it was inevitable that good would win. There is a line in the movie where one girl is telling another girl who is reprimanding her for something, "You did not create the world - God did." Wonderful way to say - you can't judge me.
The love making scene is hard to watch. Don't get me wrong - I am not prejudice - it is hard to watch because the Lilly is so scared and beaten (psychologically, physically) by Nazi men and when the Jewish girl (Felice) kneels at Lilly's feet and just holds her ankles and rests her cheek on the Lilly's calves you are in as much pain as the Lilly. The actress who plays Lilly just breaks your heart because her whole body is wracked in these hysterical shivers and no words. It is the old saying put before you in the form of these two women - one Nazi, one Jewish - that `the master becomes the slave' And of course it symbolized the whole Nazi situation. It is what Shakespear tried to to teach us in MacBeth - the blood was so much more powerful than the knife.