By the time Christian Petzold made Barbara in 2012, enough time had passed for his film not to be seen as just the latest in a line of Ostalgia movies (2003âs Good Bye Lenin! is a prime example). In any case the German writer and director tends to be more concerned with the problems created by freedom rather than a lack of it. Films misty-eyed for the communist era arenât really his thing.
However, Barbara does have some generous things to say about life in the German Democratic Republic (aka East Germany) wrapped up in a thriller about a woman trying to escape to the West.
Barbara (Nina Hoss) is a doctor in internal exile at a backwoods East German hospital. Having had the temerity to ask for an exit visa, sheâs now no longer a bigshot in Berlin but has been demoted and is now doing routine rounds on the wards in Nowherestadt. Sheâs under constant surveillance by the Stasi (the secret police), plus her landlady and work colleagues. The old GDR had the reputation for being the most surveilled state ever, and in this film you really feel it.
On the other hand there is day-to-day life there â old-fashioned, decent, relaxed and with an austere simplicity thatâs not without its pluses. The roads arenât clogged with cars, everyone has enough to eat, the hospital where Barbara works is clean, functional, almost laid back.
But there is the âsocialist concentration campâ up the road, weâre reminded, just in case weâre getting too enamoured with life in the GDR, which is where the third leg of this story comes in â Stella (Jasna Frizi Bauer), a would-be fugitive whose attempted suicide finds an echo in the desperate Barbara.
But that is putting the cart before the horse. Second leg of the story is Ronald Zehrfeld as the crumpled handsome doctor, AndrĂ©, also posted in this backwater hospital as punishment for some past misdeed, and instantly â as men so often are in Petzold films â smitten when Barbara arrives.
She gives him scant reason to get his hopes up. Unsmiling, curt and eager to be self-sufficient, Barbara avoid the lifts AndrĂ© keeps offering her in his car and even presses an old bicycle back into service so he’ll stop offering. Barbara is a woman who gives every impression of being a lone operator.
But, actually, she already has a man, Jörg (Mark Waschke), a West German, hence her eagerness to get out. Jörg isnât in the film much but his materialism sticks out like a sentry tower. So does Barbaraâs, at least when sheâs with Jörg â he offers to come and live in the GDR to be with her, because thatâs what he wants more than anything else. But suddenly she isnât quite as enthusiastic about it all as she was. Maybe sheâs just keen to get to the West. Petzold does not explore any further.
A simple dilemma is often the dramatic driver of Petzoldâs films. In Barbara itâs this: is Barbara going to take the chance to flee to the West or is East Germany going to win through? Put in more carnal terms, is she going to boff AndrĂ©, the handsome doctor?
Nina Hossâs haughty beauty stands her in good stead here. She is ice incarnate, letting go only one smile throughout, a moment that effectively marks the turning point of the film. As for Zehrfeld, he plays AndrĂ© as a good-humoured puppy becoming increasingly frantic as he tries every gambit to hook this reluctant co-worker.
Almost as persistent is the wind! It never stops blowing, and Barbara is pictured often battling down long, empty country roads on her bike with the trees raging around her. Turmoil within, you get the picture.
Or the unseen without â the Stasi and their little helpers (everyone, more or less) are the motif that runs through this film. One of the blocks between Barbara and AndrĂ© is her suspicion that heâs one of their little informants, along with everyone else.
Do they, donât they, will she, wonât she, and how does sickly Stella fit into all this? Petzold plaits the strands â romance, thriller, human drama â together with skill and with an assured sense of pace that marks out the great movie. In fact you can watch Barbara simply for the pacing alone, itâs impeccable.
Barbara â Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2020
