One seldom thinks of movie exhibitors having an academic agenda, but the Music Box organization has been developing an odd sideline in revisionist history of the European war. Last winter its distribution arm, Music Box Films, imported Cate Shortland’s powerful German drama Lore, in which a teenage girl learns the ugly truth about her high-ranking Nazi father. Just before Christmas, the Music Box Theatre presented Wladyslaw Pasikowski’s drama Aftermath, which raised hackles in Poland with its fact-based tale of Nazi invaders and Polish townspeople collaborating to slaughter hundreds of their Jewish neighbors. Now Music Box Films has acquired U.S. distribution rights for Generation War, a controversial German TV miniseries about five young Berliners pulled apart and then reunited by Hitler’s doomed assault on the Soviet Union. Though originally broadcast in three 90-minute installments, it screens at Music Box in two parts, the Saturday show punctuated by an hour-long panel discussion on the film’s historical merits.
The women’s corruption is more insidious, tangled up in their romantic feelings for men. Greta (Katharina Schüttler), called in for questioning after the drinking party, is seduced by a virile but married Gestapo agent (Mark Waschke) who promises to promote her showbiz career, and as the relationship develops she manages to finagle an exit visa for Viktor (Ludwig Trepte). When Viktor accuses her of two-timing him, she replies coldly, “You ought to be more grateful.” Meanwhile, the lovelorn Charlotte (Miriam Stein) tries to find her feet as a nurse behind the front lines in Smolensk, helped along by the Ukrainian woman she recruits as an assistant (Christiane Paul). The women grow friendly, and Charly even confesses to the woman her unspoken feelings for Wilhelm. But after Charly discovers that her assistant is a Jew, she reports her to the authorities and the woman is rounded up for deportation. When Greta arrives at the front to entertain the troops, a guilt-ridden Charly tells her, “Nothing is how we thought it would be.”
Directed by Philipp Kadelbach
