STUDIO: Kino Lorber | DIRECTOR: Christian Petzold | CAST: Nina Hoss, Rainer Bock, Ronald Zehrfeld, Christina Hecke, Jasna Fritzi Bauer
BLU-RAY & DVD RELEASE DATE: 11/12/2013 | PRICE: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $34.95
BONUSES: none
SPECS: PG-13 | 105 min. | Foreign language drama | 1.85:1 widescreen | Dolby Digital stereo | German with English subtitles
RATINGS (out of 5 dishes): Movie
| Audio
Like the 2006 Oscar-winner The Lives of Others, Christian Petzold’s 2012 drama Barbara is a taut, harrowing account of East German life under the repressive eye of the most feared secret police in Communist-era Europe: the Stasi.
Nina Hoss is Barbara.
Barbara (Nina Hoss), a young doctor, lost her prestigious post at a Berlin hospital when she applied for an exit visa to be with her West German lover. She was then incarcerated and reassigned to a provincial clinic. She plots her escape and steals furtive encounters with that lover, all the while enduring searches of her apartment and her body cavities. Then, her growing trust in a fellow doctor (Ronald Zehrfeld) and a compassion for an abused patient compel her to a course of moral courage.
In these circumstances, moments of simple humanity become intensely moving, as when a patient’s grateful family gives the doctors a basket of fresh garden vegetables.
The low-key performances beautifully convey the de-humanizing effects of oppression, especially Hoss, who catches her breath every time she hears a car outside. The visuals capture the crumbling infrastructure of a failed economic system.
In an era of increasing surveillance and over-reaching central planners, Barbara serves as a powerful cautionary tale. It’s also a damn good movie.
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