User Reviews

This is a film about the divided Berlin before the infamous wall was built. Young people from the east could easily go to the west to have fun and hang out with people from the west. So they do in this film and thus the romance starts. There is surprisingly little blatant propaganda. People in the west are portrayed like people. In the beginning there is a minor conflict with a salesman. He accepts easily the eastern money, but cannot give back the correct change. This probably reflects the wishful thinking of the east that their money had equal worth. So Uschi from the east falls in love with Hans from the west. At a point, she considers moving to the west because of better opportunities there, including a more modern life while in the east there is nothing but work. This is contrasted by a group of young men without work. They complain equally about the lack of opportunities. One even wants to emigrate to Australia. An off-screen voice narrates at some point that the west indeed does not have so many chances as is claimed by "certain newspapers". Uschi's parents do not like the idea that her daughter has a boyfriend in the west and ground her. Her reaction seems prophetic: "You may as well lock me up completely". That's what the authorities in GDR did 5 years later. Similar prophetic is the reaction to western youngsters to having a girlfriend in the east: "It's no use. At some point you might not be able to get over there." Today we can see this as a kind of foreshadowing. Uschi is living with her parents in the east. Their flat is bigger than the one Hans shares with his mother (there is no father) in West Berlin. Uschi's parents have the opinion that "you need to know where you belong to". Uschi has no doubt about that, so at last her parents accept to meet her daughter's boyfriend. This film wasn't very successful with those in charge of propaganda,as it is about real people. The east is not necessarily the worker's paradise and the west is not shown as a caricature either. Young people who try to find their way in life, beyond politics and ideologies. That's why it's still fascinating to watch it today. It is more like a field study of young people's dreams and aspirations and such it is timeless

Most of this film fits right in with the glorious style of black-and-white neorealism. Beautifully shot, lots of grim depictions of hard-scrabble reality. The problem is that the last ten minutes are an East German propaganda appendage. The story ends with the childish "And everyone lived happily ever after," when it should have been that the young woman was jilted by the cad who tricked her (into we may imagine, becoming pregnant). Eine Berliner Romanze is a good example of how censorship and politically imposed "improvements" to works of art can end by wrecking them.

Turn this off before the last ten minutes and imagine what really happened.