A beautiful film about how nature eventually overturns all our human contrivances.
We meet Lore (Saskia Rosendahl) and her family in the immediate aftermath of the Nazi capitulation in 1945: Mutti und Vati (German for Mummy and Daddy, though curiously not so translated in the subtitles) are SS functionaries based in Munich who have realised that the game – and quite possibly their number – is up. They hastily pack trunks, burn incriminating evidence, shoot the dog and flee in a canvas covered truck to a safe house in the depths of the Bavarian black forest, but even there they cannot escape the American occupiers’ tightening net.
Father (Hans-Jochen Wagner) is silently apprehended and eventually Mother (Ursina Lardi), an archetypal stiff, glacial Aryan, walks out of the woods to hand herself in. She coldly leaves Lore, a strikingly handsome girl of 15, to fend for the family, comprising; sister Liesel (Nele Trebs), twin 7 year-olds Günther (André Frid) and Jürgen (Mika Seidel) and baby Peter (Nick Holaschke). Mutti’s parting instructions: head to your grandmother’s house in Hamburg: we’ll meet you there.
Hamburg is a long way from the Schwartzwald. In her face you can read that Mother doesn’t believe they’ll make it that far, and doesn’t believe she will either. In her face you can read the end of days.
As the children of the deposed murderous elite the children find themselves unwelcome in their rural retreat. Lore packs some things and the children set out: at a basic level, the film becomes a post-apocalyptic road movie, as harrowing as Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. The environment they traverse, in human terms, is blasted to hell, but nature is having her traditional ball: the countryside is in beautiful late summer bloom: Adam Arkapaw’s luscious cinematography often pauses to observe the moss, mould spores, pollen, flies and ants, which settle, feast and propagate as happily on human remains and the detritus of conflict as readily as on any other flora or fauna.
The children are confronted with the residue, all around, of unspeakable and desperate acts; though, by and large, the survivors are now civil, but they are as untrusting of each other as they are of their American occupiers. The locals still harbour resentment for the Jews, as if they somehow asked for this to be brought on the German people. They are obliged to view photographs of Belsen and Auschwitz as they cue for food, but there is open disbelief at their legitimacy.
Lore is well-raised (in her Nazi household), is disgusted by the squalor and insists at first on cleanliness and orderliness. She is poised precisely on the brink of sexual maturity and is aware that this would have currency in the squalor, where her trinkets and keepsakes have little value. She is also aware in particular of a fellow traveller, Thomas (Kai-Peter Malina), who seems to be tracking the children, and Lore in particular, with nefarious intent. Circumstances throw them together: Thomas reveals himself to be of good intentions, but to Lore’s initial horror, bears the tattoos and papers of an Auschwitz survivor.
Over this dilemma the film proceeds: this is Lore’s coming of age, it is her revaluation of all values and a study in the triumph of nature – our nature, and nature red in tooth and claw – over the feeble contrivances of frail humans. It is starkly captured, often in extreme close-up and low light: there is a graininess to the film stock which supplements the gritty life of the characters. Saskia Rosendahl’s debut performance is quite magnificent: magnetic and enigmatic, and a solid centre to this highly recommended film.
Especially recommended because, for all its apparent Europeanness, it is scripted and directed by Cate Shortland, an Australian. I sat through most of this film thinking, “why can’t Anglo-Saxon directors make films like this?”, so Shortland deserves special recognition for the authenticity of her vision. Clearly, they can.
Director: Cate Shortland
Saskia Rosendahl, Kai-Peter Malina, Nele Trebs, André Frid, Mika Seidel, Nick Holaschke, Hans-Jochen Wagner, Ursina Lardi
Country: Germany/Australia
Running Time: 109 mins
Film Rating: 
