User Reviews

"Schwester Agnes" is an East German television film from 1975, so this one had its 45th anniversary last year and maybe, depending on when you read this review, the 50th anniversary is already very close too or happened already even. There is no English title here listed for this film, which is probably not a surprise given the movie's original, but I guess that it would be "Nurse Agnes". "Schwester" is not meant in the sense of sister here, but in the sense of "Krankenschwester". Let's talk a bit more about the basics The film runs for 1.5 hours, minimally over probably with a really long title sequence, and the director is Otto Holub. He is also one of no less than four writers, pretty big amount for a film that is not super long. One person from the quartet is even a female, but why not. The GDR had a tendency to appreciate women working and after all the lead actress here is exactly that as well: an actress. As for Holub, this was one of his later career efforts. He was born in Czechoslovakia and already started directing in the 1950s, but was never really prolific and, according to imdb, two years after this one, his career was over, which was of course due to his untimely death at the age of not even 50. By the way, he never worked on Czech movies, only on German-language projects apparently. Lead actress is Agnes Kraus here. She was already comfortably into her 60s here, so it surprised me a bit honestly to see that her character was several years younger because she looked her age I would say. Maybe it was a bit of a personal film to her because the character had the same name or maybe it was just coincidence. It's not important anyway. I wish I could say more about her, but I am really not familiar with this performer at all. I see that she lives for another 20 years afterwards and it is tough to say if she was just retired when the Berlin Wall fell or if she could not find anymore jobs in reunited Germany. Then again, as I stated, she only lived for another five years, so she was really old at that point already, so maybe she just wanted to enjoy retirement and relax. Tough to blame her for that after such a long career to be fair. But people said that this film here is a bit on the progressive side, so she was not one who was really too sad about the end of the GDR I assume. However, witnessing such groundbreaking political changes at such an age probably still does something with you, either in a positive or negative way. Not sure which of the two applies to Krause. As for the rest of the cast, I can only repeat mayself by saying that I am not too familiar with most East German actors. The only one I can say something about here is Fred Delmare, fittingly also the only one with a profile picture. Not even the lead actress got one. The reason may be that Delmare managed a successful transition when the GDR vanished and still kept acting for years to come. "In aller Freundschaft" is no quality stuff obviously, but better than nothing maybe and it pays the bills with all the GEz money attached to it. Kinda funny that this is where he went from appearing in Schneewittchen in the early 1960s. His role here is also bigger than you would think looking at the fact that there are more than ten people credited higher than Delmare.

As for the movie itself, I already stated that it felt incredibly bleak. The lead performance surely didn't help either. I mean you can say it was the actress' approach or mentality here, but it did nothing for me for the most part and I sadly cannot call it quietly convincing. But it's obviously not just her. The majority of supporting players here certainly also did not leave a remotely lasting impression on me and I guess this applies to most other viewers too. The rating for this film, even if not too high, is probably slightly too high here nonetheless. I am sure with the next old GDR film I will give a watch I will not recognize the same actors once again, if they are in it. Pity. Maybe my loss, but I kinda doubt it. The writing is not any better really. So many writers for something this unimpressive is surely a disappointment. It's not even that nothing happens here. I think there is a pregnant character and most of all there is this little boy who has a deadly accident when he falls of a cliff. Of course, we don#t see that tragic event happening, but when the nurse arrives and realizes the kid is dead, it is a bit on the touching side, but they could have done so, so much more with that for sure. Like you'd expect the people living in this place to be sad for days, weeks, months really, but they move on so quickly that it feels as if such a crucial event is barely a part of the story. Honestly, blink and you might even miss it because the references to said tragedy are this scarce. There are other key plots, like the beloved elderly nurse taking care of a young woman, actually a really attractive one and this means something coming from me as I am never really into blondes that much. Then there are the professional struggles of the old woman. I actually should not call her old because of how "young" her character here is. And retirement is never an option for her. Just moving elsewhere is the plan at some point. Will she? Will she not? Keep watching if you care. I kinda didn't, maybe because the townsfolk never really caught my attention, so I thought that maybe I like the new fellas better, even if it was nice here and there that they really seemed to like the title character, especially when she got sick. Not really being sick, but pretending is also part of the film here. I already mentioned earlier that this was not the most GDR-friendly movie you could say from a political perspective, but it was also not so bad that it got censored or even banned. by today's standards, it is really harmless of course. And also I did not see too many inclusions where I felt that this was really critical about the powerful and those in charge. It just seemed to be a bit on the progressive side when on one occasion we see topless young women. Honestly, this is comedy-linked, but the comedy here also did not really make an impact and it was rare enough and it is these devastating parts of the dead young boy for example that make me say that it is more of a character study, mostly a drama and not a comedy. This was the time I think when there was stuff like Schulmädchen-Report being released in West Germany and the nudity you get to see here is probably the utmost you can expect from the socialist GDR. Overall, it is not a terribly bad film and I even think that you can discover new things and aspects on rewatch here, but the entire thing felt so slow and uninteresting to me that I have zero motivation to give it a rewatch anytime soon. Probably never. That's why I give it a thumbs-down and negative recommendation and it wasn't even a close call. Watch something else instead.

Let's get the story out of the way:

Agnes, a crotchety, though bizarrely well liked nurse taking care of the various ailments of a rural community, comes in conflict with the mayor when he refuses to grant a young and expecting couple a new home. As Agnes ultimately threatens to leave the community, outrage and shenanigans ensue, including such highlights as a boy hiding a rotten cheese sandwich in the mayor's office to make it all smelly and stuff, and a handful of villagers feigning illnesses to demonstrate how much they need nurse Agnes. None of this is particularly engaging or funny. Spoiler alert.

Alright, then. Another reviewer called this a quintessential movie to watch for anyone interested in understanding the German psyche. Now, I wouldn't go quite that far, but if you're honestly interested in getting a representative taste of good, old East German family entertainment, then this really is a perfect pick. It features the same grotesque banality of the conflicts, the same homeliness of the characters with their gleeful, almost proud simple-mindedness, and the same overall glorification of the working class and the status quo that characterized a very significant percentage of TV productions in the GDR ("Aber Vati", "Rentner Haben Niemals Zeit", the "Maxe Baumann" series of televised stage plays, "Barfuß ins Bett", "Geschichten übern Gartenzaun ", just to name a few more examples).

However, two elements that certainly do make this movie different from most of its contemporaries are the two Agneses. Not only is Agnes Heurig, the titular character, an outstandingly annoying, stubborn, thin-skinned, self-righteous and choleric monster of a human being, who treats anyone who doesn't instantly agree with everything she says like worthless garbage, but Agnes Kraus, the actress portraying her, was also blessed with an astonishing lack of talent and a unique "enunciation" that made me wish this were a silent film. The fact that most of the side characters in this movie are quite fond of Agnes despite her abhorrent behavior is as mystifying to me as Agnes Kraus' popularity in real life.

By the way, to give those, who didn't grow up on the Socialist side of the wall, a more concrete idea of this character, one could compare it to Tyler Perry's Madea. Although Madea is first and foremost an over-the-top comedic character whereas Agnes was at least intended to be kind of a semi-real person, they both share this righteous indignation, this hostility towards opposing views, and this "high-horsitude" that make them irredeemably unlikable.

I guess that in order to get even a modicum of enjoyment out of this movie, one would have to be fully on board with the main character's views, and also see some charm (or at least comedic value) in her grumpy, self-righteous stubbornness. I fail at both. It gets 2 stars instead of 1, simply because the actors around Agnes put up a decent enough effort portraying their dopey characters.