There’s something comforting about a moment of recognition while watching a film. Although I enjoy watching films with non-famous cast members, I cannot help but get a little excited when I have a moment like, “Oh, is that Peter Sarsgaard?!” and I know that I am not alone, especially as an American. Watching Barbara, I had this moment, as I am sure my classmates did, but with Nina Hoss. Hoss is now a welcome face on my screen, despite my not knowing her just two weeks ago – a similar transition in feeling to how Barbara felt about André. Although his colleague only briefly, she choose to stay with him in the seemingly dangerous socialist East Germany.
This film more directly spoke to the concept of the relationship of love and money than the last couple films we watched. In Petzold’s interview with R. Kurt Osenlund, he said that his research, particularly with the book Barbara was important because it was “researching what happens to love in societies that are not only in crisis, but in breakdown – what happens to couples and the subject of love.” Although it is fairly common for crisis to bring people together, Barbara has an opportunity to escape that crisis, and to be with her partner from before her banishment to the provinces. This perhaps says something about the strength in a relationship in which the partners share similar passions. Both André and Barbara show great dedication to their medical work, while Barbara’s partner Jörg naively tells her that she will be able to sleep in since he can work enough for the both of them. Despite what little audiences know about Barbara, they should have enough to piece together how unnerving this would be to Barbara. Although she has an opportunity to live a more comfortable life in a home with a working doorbell and outlet, she would rather earn her money.
Looking at the relationship between Barbara and Stella, one could also argue that had Barbara not had the money, she could not have loved Stella as she wanted to. By having the means to escape the country, she could free Stella from the shackles of a “work house” (which is, as Barbara points out, a euphemism for a socialist extermination camp). Although Petzold has said that he wanted to use vibrant colors to paint a less sinister picture of the East Germany he grew up visiting, he did not shy away from the awful truth of these camps, which eerily represent much of the imagery of Holocaust camps.
Just for accuracyy's sake: the GDR did not kill people whom they put in work camp. They were neither like the Nazis nor like the Soviets who killed their citizens in the Gulag. The work camps were just that: work camps, but they did not exterminate. (The GDR did kill a number of people trying to escape crossing the wall, however--but that's different.)
There's something off about the romantic scenes in Barbara (2012). They feel alien, as if they cannot come about naturally under the social conditions that East Germany offers. As Jaimey Fisher points out, there is a compromise that either Barbara (Nina Hoss) or Jorg (Mark Waschke) must make in order to stay together. Either Jorg must move to East Germany where Barbara argues "one cannot be happy" or Barbara must abandon her career which she cares about and is good at (142). Perhaps because of these largely dissatisfying compromises, Barbara and Jorg never seem quite right together.
In their first scene, Nina walks into the woods, with a shot-reverse shot pattern of her watching cars as they pass by through the trees. Given that we know she's being watched, this moment feels distinctly paranoid. However, Petzold breaks our expectations when Jorg arrives. Rather than killing or kidnapping Barbara (my first assumption), they run toward each other and embrace. It's almost like something out of a romantic comedy, with Nina dropping what looks like a picnic basket, birds chirping around them, and a verdant if slightly gloomy nature scene. I almost laughed at this part, precisely because it felt like a movie imitating another movie. The result of this feeling is that Jorg and Barbara don't seem right for each other. Their romance seems out of place with the rest of the world.
Later, the romantic comedy returns in another scene, when Jorg helps Barbara up through his window at night. This act in itself feels like something out of a teen movie - the trope of the boyfriend climbing through to be with his girlfriend in her bedroom without her parents knowing. The diegetic music adds another layer of strangeness to it - the best way to describe it is vibraphone elevator music that James Bond would listen to while making love to a woman who he'll forget about the following morning. The scene is even poised like some sort of passionate, one-time (or one of few times) encounter, with Barbara atop Jorg on the bed as they declare their love for each other in the way only people in the honeymoon phase do. So, like before, the romantic scene is almost comedic. And because it is comedic, it seems out of place with social conditions portrayed by the rest of the film. In other words, neither Barbara nor Jorg seem to belong with each other, with this moment, or with this country. They are an ill-fated match.
Their relationship is also largely mediated by money, as we find out in their forest encounter, when Jorg asks if Barbara has brought the payment. This payment is presumably for the smuggler who will get her out of East Germany. Ostensibly, it is money that will allow her to love him in a country that is much more free than East Germany. However, it is her career - another source of money and a different type of love (care for people's bodily wellbeing) - that keeps her in East Germany.
To clarify: "Jorg asks if Barbara has brought the payment"--He doesn't ask whether she BROUGHT the money but whether she RECEIVED it. We saw her in the scene at the restaurant getting money--the implication is that Joerg made sure she'd get the--HIS--money this way so that she can eventually pay off the guy who's supposed to smuggle her across the Baltic Sea from East Germany to Denmark. So, Barbara is NOT the one who pays, but Joerg is (insofar as he gives her the money required to flee).
As for whether the romantic scenes b/w B and J are comic, I don't know. The reception of the film certainly hasn't suggested this, so this might be as much your expectations etc as the film itself. The film isn't a romantic comedy and I don't think it plays these scene for comedy. That said, your point that this specific couple is not in the right place, as it were, is well taken. Importantly, of course, Joerg is from WEST Germany whereas she's EAST.
I would have to say that this film was very intriguing and featured great landscaping shots of the natural foliage in Germany. When I examine this film and it characters I thought that there were a lot of balancing and contrasting factors. The two doctors in the film are very different when it comes to personality. Barbara is a very self sufficient, smart and sometimes personable. She was sent over to the East side of Germany after being incarcerated and has since been placed at a “providence” hospital. I took it from some of the dialogue that her previous job was a big deal and she was considered very successful. Barbara is very cold and indifferent towards her colleagues and situation in general. The only time that we really see her open is up is when she is with her patients and West German lover. The head doctor at Barbara’s new hospital is Andre. Andre is also very smart and much more open with his emotions than Barbara. He was also sent over for an incident that caused the blindness of two infants under his supervision. Andre grows feelings for the distant Barbara, maybe seeing a part of his old life that he misses from when he was in West Germany. These characters are in search of belonging and place. Andre is longing for the affections of Barbara and also likes having her professional input at the hospital. While I think Barbara is looking to find what makes her happy. In West Germany it is clear that she has a lot of money and so does her lover and while that is enticing she still choices to be selfless and stay in East Germany. She stays in the small rural town because she is needed and she feels she has a purpose. When she goes over to West Germany she is told that she will not need to work anymore because her lover will be making more than enough money. You can tell that she is off put by this comment and we later find out that she chooses not to go with him. The patients that the two doctors take care of are, also contrasting and feature many characteristics of each contrasting doctor. Stella is more open like Andre and finds solace in Barbara being there. While Mario who is Andre’s patient is an emotional person and one could say somewhat happy until he thinks his girlfriend is cheating on him resulting in him trying to take his life. After being saved Mario is very cold and shows no emotions. I think this is a self-reflection on Stella. Stella was happy and successful, working at a very prominent hospital, then a change happens and she becomes the cold and self-contained women we see in the East Germany. In the end Mario is fixed and becomes as far as we know back to his old self and we find Barbara being fixed in the fact that she has made her decision and found where she belongs. I would also like to point out; a side note that caught my interest, and that would be the use of color blue. Barbara whenever she is not wearing her white robe and white doctors coat is always seen wearing blue. Also the cars in the movie are blue along with Stella’s clothes, Barbara’s bicycle and the Sea.
"She was sent over to the East side of Germany after being incarcerated "
Not quite. She IS East German but was sent to a provincial East German hospital from EAST Berlin's Charite because she requested to leave East for West German. So it's her own country that punished her, not West Germany that sent her east. (Same goes for Andre. She also doesn't go over to W German.) You would know this had you done any of the assigned readings for the film....
The film Barbara, was one of Petzold's first period pieces, and a film that you can clearly tell is particularly close to the director. What I mean by this is that Petzold is almost telling a story about someone who could be his relative. We learned that he was born in the west, but his parents were refugees, and his mother was even pregnant when she fled to the west. This was clearly an inspiration for Petzold to create this film, along with the books he mentions in his interview (one of coarse a clear inspiration even sharing the same title). While there is a bit of romance in this movie, between the titular character and the two men, there does not seem to be any clear connection between love and money like there has been in previous films. I believe I know why this is as well. Because this subject matter is so close to Petzold, I believe he was more concerned with creating an effective period piece reflecting the life these east germans were living rather than creating a deeply bedded love story. For me, watching the film i found it to be a far better story when looking at it as a piece of history and not as a love story. This is why I personally believe Petzold decided to stray away from the conventional love story, and focus less on the issues of love and money.
Well, a key sentence in the film is spoken by her West German boy friend, who tells her that once she's escaped she no longer would have to work because he makes enough money. This is something she rejects because she values her work (if not money). So the promise of wealth--plentitude--is put in question precisely because the system that generates it is more patriarchal than the system that struggles to generate wealth (East Ger), and yet B stays in EG. So the film does investigate the relationship between economic systems and people's relationships.... And CP discusses this in the interview, as does JF in his book chapter.
The film Barbara (2012) takes place in the East Germany (When Germany was still separate). Nina Hoss plays the character of Barbara. Barbara seems to be a bit shaky, for, throughout the film, she wants to leave East Germany. The way Nina plays a serious and collective character sells the structure of that side of Germany. In the interview with Osenlund, Petzold talks about his location being set in a hospital "I was looking for a place where you can see the work and also have the dramatic structure of the story." The location of the hospital he chose works with Nina Hoss's character, for it solidifies to personality working as a nurse. Her lover Jorg (Mark Waschke) helps her out through the film by giving her money to escape, but in the end, all her secrecy and work comes to her letting Stella leave the country to start a new. The lighting in each sequence amplifies through bright hues of color. The dark scenes seem to have more focus shots than the day scenes. The reason is to capture the presence of the characters emotion compared to the day scene where natural lighting is in use to present the characters. Both the day and night scene, when transitioned to the indoors, objectifies the characters with different lighting techniques. The creative lighting conveys a sequence of security, whereas, the backlighting illustrates the intimacy between characters. The cutting edge use of lighting through lamps and other light sources work together to contract the indoor scene; exploiting the characters when the cuts interchange between characters. The sound technique of diegetic and non-diegetic structures the complexity of the film. It uses the diegetic sounds in collective key moments, like the wind blowing intensively. Whereas, the non-diegetic sounds are illustrated to build up the drama or employed in transitioning sequences.
As Lane pointed out above, and as it was pointed out in the Filmmaker Magazine interview, the film Barbara (2012) was heavily inspired by Petzold's own life. Both of his parents were refugees during the split between East and West Germany. In fact, much like Stella in the film, Petzold's mother was pregnant at the time of escaping. Because this subject matter is so close to Petzold, it makes telling the story of Barbara seem fluid and almost effortless.
One of the points in the film that I figured came from personal experience, but was not mentioned in detail in the interview, came from the exchange between Barbara and Jorg in the Interhotel. Jorg tells Barbara that once they have returned to West Germany, she will not have to work ever again. He promises to support her because he makes plenty of money. While this may seem like a solid plan for some people, Barbara is obviously upset with this. She seems to deeply enjoy her job-- she's good at being a doctor, she knows her stuff, and she actually takes pride in her work. She has a strong sense of independence, and she takes value in making her own way. The act of being promised plenty of money verses the LOVE of her career is what really ties in with our class theme.
In the end, Barbara actively rejects this offer, choosing to stay within East Germany despite the promised freedom, wealth, and relationship that is in West Germany. She chooses the love of her career and the love of her own independence instead of taking the escape to West Germany.
For the first time this semester, I genuinely felt warm leaving Room 117, and I had no idea it would be a Christian Petzold film (based on my very limited knowledge) that would do it to me. It’s hard to not compare this film to Yella (2008), what with the single-female name carrying the title card, and it got compared to it in both of our accompanying readings. The two had essentially opposite endings, though. The transitions that the main character in Barbara (2012), Barbara (Nina Ross), is going through, not only are more likely a better opportunity overall, but actually get played out as she chooses the life she has been forced into. There is a focus on youth in this film that neither of the readings point out, and we continue to return back to it. From a child stirring in her sleep all the way to a young woman, Steffi (Susanne Bormann), attempting to change her stars, using her ticket of love to ride out of the German Democratic Republic (which Barbara immediately shuts down). This underlying commentary on the youth during this period is best explained with the inclusion of Stella (Jasna Fritzi Bauer) and the events that surround Mario (Jannik Schümann). Stella, whose pregnancy they originally tried to keep hidden from her, only to find out that she knew all along, and who eventually gets the opportunity to leave her suppressive situation on the GDR, is the person who gets the opportunity for the most change. Granted, her change parallels the transition away from West Germany that Barbara’s personal journey consists of, but at the end of the day, Stella gets her sympathetic story of hope completed. Now, her story may not exactly end up well, considering the fact that she is pregnant and entering somewhere she doesn’t know with a bag of money that probably won’t support an eventual new mother for long, but her story makes the most beautiful arc. Now Mario, whose attempt at suicide leaves him emotionless, unable to connect, becomes the perfect victim of this “country no one can live in.” The youth is who will inevitably struggle the most with this society’s fate, eventually dissociated and left connectionless. Barbara already has a job, and it is this job, which gives her a kind of freedom and independence, that she chooses over a life of “sleeping in” with her West German partner Jörg (Mark Washke). She has a chance to make something of the situation she finds herself in, and can find meaning in this way – the youth does not have this luxury.
Both readings talked about the use of color, which I noticed quickly when compared to the other Petzold films we have watched. This was probably a contributing reason as to why it took me so long to place the film in time, which sounded like it was on purpose, as Petzold states, “The feel of coldness is under the skin, and so we had to make a movie about the things that are under the skin, and not in the air. […] I wanted the skin of the women, and the skin of the men, and the color of the clothes, and the color of the shoes, to be great.” I agree that it helped draw one more into the conversations, the ideas, the feelings that were being had between the people, rather than getting caught up in the symbolism behind “this dirty snow, and this muddy light, to say that the people are cold there—in their hearts, and in their souls, and in the system.” Overall, I was most impressed with such a hopeful ending. I didn’t want Barbara to end up with Jörg, but since that seemed like the sad, unhappy option characteristic (to an extent) of the previous films’ endings, I was honestly surprised that Barbara chose to stay with her job and warm, happy André (Ronald Zehrfeld). In this film, thankfully, things didn’t stay the same.
In Barbara, uses his own childhood to describe how Babara “ traversing political systems and states will irrevocably change her professional life” (Fisher). During the policital separation of East and West Germany, Petzold and his family knew both sides of Germany. His family had moved to West Germany to work and have a better life, but he still had family members in the east. By seeing both sides, he was able to incorporate this into why we see Barbara do the things she does. Everyone in the east is continuously surveyed and oppressed by a overhanging figure during this time and I liked how real he made it seem. I did enjoy seeing how Petzold transitioned his film from a thriller to a romance. In the beginning we see her desire to escape the east and the Stasi who use “violence and dissidents” to control and spy on their people (Fisher 142). With this aspect in mind, Nina Hoss plays Barbara as a very tense and paranoid character, always looking over her shoulder to keep her plan from being known. To give us more understanding of this character, Petzold also chooses Barbara to read Huckleberry Finn to Stella, signifying to us how these four characters relate. Just like how two slaves want to escape the horrors of the South, Barbara and Stella want to escape the oppression of East Germany. Due to this high-risk plan, Barbara does not know who to trust and neither do we. What I especially found interesting was the lack of music within the film, and I think this was intentionally done to keep the suspicion and thriller nature of the film going. Music helps us to know how to feel during a particular scene, and without any extra-diegetic music, we are left in the dark. Like Barbara, we have no clue if someone is spying on her or even who that person is. However, as we see her work in the clinic, Hoss shows a completely different side of Barbara. In her work she is warm and caring and displays how capable and smart she is at her job. Through the scenes in the clinic, Petzold gives a more romantic vibe and illustrates how “love derives not only from reproduction but also production” meaning personal and work related relationships helped to blossom their love (Fisher 143). Through this, we see how love builds from a money related relationship. Without the work, we would have never seen Andre’s and Barbara’s progress. Worked helped to show each other who they really are and bring them closer together. Therefore, this fits in with the money and love theme we have.
"Petzold also chooses Barbara to read Huckleberry Finn to Stella, signifying to us how these four characters relate. Just like how two slaves want to escape the horrors of the South, Barbara and Stella want to escape the oppression of East Germany." Good observation! Also good point regarding the work-love relationship. Good use of / engagement with assigned reading.
There’s something comforting about a moment of recognition while watching a film. Although I enjoy watching films with non-famous cast members, I cannot help but get a little excited when I have a moment like, “Oh, is that Peter Sarsgaard?!” and I know that I am not alone, especially as an American. Watching Barbara, I had this moment, as I am sure my classmates did, but with Nina Hoss. Hoss is now a welcome face on my screen, despite my not knowing her just two weeks ago – a similar transition in feeling to how Barbara felt about André. Although his colleague only briefly, she choose to stay with him in the seemingly dangerous socialist East Germany.
ReplyDeleteThis film more directly spoke to the concept of the relationship of love and money than the last couple films we watched. In Petzold’s interview with R. Kurt Osenlund, he said that his research, particularly with the book Barbara was important because it was “researching what happens to love in societies that are not only in crisis, but in breakdown – what happens to couples and the subject of love.” Although it is fairly common for crisis to bring people together, Barbara has an opportunity to escape that crisis, and to be with her partner from before her banishment to the provinces. This perhaps says something about the strength in a relationship in which the partners share similar passions. Both André and Barbara show great dedication to their medical work, while Barbara’s partner Jörg naively tells her that she will be able to sleep in since he can work enough for the both of them. Despite what little audiences know about Barbara, they should have enough to piece together how unnerving this would be to Barbara. Although she has an opportunity to live a more comfortable life in a home with a working doorbell and outlet, she would rather earn her money.
Looking at the relationship between Barbara and Stella, one could also argue that had Barbara not had the money, she could not have loved Stella as she wanted to. By having the means to escape the country, she could free Stella from the shackles of a “work house” (which is, as Barbara points out, a euphemism for a socialist extermination camp). Although Petzold has said that he wanted to use vibrant colors to paint a less sinister picture of the East Germany he grew up visiting, he did not shy away from the awful truth of these camps, which eerily represent much of the imagery of Holocaust camps.
Just for accuracyy's sake: the GDR did not kill people whom they put in work camp. They were neither like the Nazis nor like the Soviets who killed their citizens in the Gulag. The work camps were just that: work camps, but they did not exterminate. (The GDR did kill a number of people trying to escape crossing the wall, however--but that's different.)
Delete(Oh, not to mention the little detail where the work camps are so inhumane that a little girl would prefer a SPINAL TAP over them.)
ReplyDeleteThere's something off about the romantic scenes in Barbara (2012). They feel alien, as if they cannot come about naturally under the social conditions that East Germany offers. As Jaimey Fisher points out, there is a compromise that either Barbara (Nina Hoss) or Jorg (Mark Waschke) must make in order to stay together. Either Jorg must move to East Germany where Barbara argues "one cannot be happy" or Barbara must abandon her career which she cares about and is good at (142). Perhaps because of these largely dissatisfying compromises, Barbara and Jorg never seem quite right together.
ReplyDeleteIn their first scene, Nina walks into the woods, with a shot-reverse shot pattern of her watching cars as they pass by through the trees. Given that we know she's being watched, this moment feels distinctly paranoid. However, Petzold breaks our expectations when Jorg arrives. Rather than killing or kidnapping Barbara (my first assumption), they run toward each other and embrace. It's almost like something out of a romantic comedy, with Nina dropping what looks like a picnic basket, birds chirping around them, and a verdant if slightly gloomy nature scene. I almost laughed at this part, precisely because it felt like a movie imitating another movie. The result of this feeling is that Jorg and Barbara don't seem right for each other. Their romance seems out of place with the rest of the world.
Later, the romantic comedy returns in another scene, when Jorg helps Barbara up through his window at night. This act in itself feels like something out of a teen movie - the trope of the boyfriend climbing through to be with his girlfriend in her bedroom without her parents knowing. The diegetic music adds another layer of strangeness to it - the best way to describe it is vibraphone elevator music that James Bond would listen to while making love to a woman who he'll forget about the following morning. The scene is even poised like some sort of passionate, one-time (or one of few times) encounter, with Barbara atop Jorg on the bed as they declare their love for each other in the way only people in the honeymoon phase do. So, like before, the romantic scene is almost comedic. And because it is comedic, it seems out of place with social conditions portrayed by the rest of the film. In other words, neither Barbara nor Jorg seem to belong with each other, with this moment, or with this country. They are an ill-fated match.
Their relationship is also largely mediated by money, as we find out in their forest encounter, when Jorg asks if Barbara has brought the payment. This payment is presumably for the smuggler who will get her out of East Germany. Ostensibly, it is money that will allow her to love him in a country that is much more free than East Germany. However, it is her career - another source of money and a different type of love (care for people's bodily wellbeing) - that keeps her in East Germany.
To clarify: "Jorg asks if Barbara has brought the payment"--He doesn't ask whether she BROUGHT the money but whether she RECEIVED it. We saw her in the scene at the restaurant getting money--the implication is that Joerg made sure she'd get the--HIS--money this way so that she can eventually pay off the guy who's supposed to smuggle her across the Baltic Sea from East Germany to Denmark. So, Barbara is NOT the one who pays, but Joerg is (insofar as he gives her the money required to flee).
DeleteAs for whether the romantic scenes b/w B and J are comic, I don't know. The reception of the film certainly hasn't suggested this, so this might be as much your expectations etc as the film itself. The film isn't a romantic comedy and I don't think it plays these scene for comedy. That said, your point that this specific couple is not in the right place, as it were, is well taken. Importantly, of course, Joerg is from WEST Germany whereas she's EAST.
I would have to say that this film was very intriguing and featured great landscaping shots of the natural foliage in Germany. When I examine this film and it characters I thought that there were a lot of balancing and contrasting factors. The two doctors in the film are very different when it comes to personality.
ReplyDeleteBarbara is a very self sufficient, smart and sometimes personable. She was sent over to the East side of Germany after being incarcerated and has since been placed at a “providence” hospital. I took it from some of the dialogue that her previous job was a big deal and she was considered very successful. Barbara is very cold and indifferent towards her colleagues and situation in general. The only time that we really see her open is up is when she is with her patients and West German lover.
The head doctor at Barbara’s new hospital is Andre. Andre is also very smart and much more open with his emotions than Barbara. He was also sent over for an incident that caused the blindness of two infants under his supervision. Andre grows feelings for the distant Barbara, maybe seeing a part of his old life that he misses from when he was in West Germany. These characters are in search of belonging and place. Andre is longing for the affections of Barbara and also likes having her professional input at the hospital. While I think Barbara is looking to find what makes her happy. In West Germany it is clear that she has a lot of money and so does her lover and while that is enticing she still choices to be selfless and stay in East Germany. She stays in the small rural town because she is needed and she feels she has a purpose. When she goes over to West Germany she is told that she will not need to work anymore because her lover will be making more than enough money. You can tell that she is off put by this comment and we later find out that she chooses not to go with him.
The patients that the two doctors take care of are, also contrasting and feature many characteristics of each contrasting doctor. Stella is more open like Andre and finds solace in Barbara being there. While Mario who is Andre’s patient is an emotional person and one could say somewhat happy until he thinks his girlfriend is cheating on him resulting in him trying to take his life. After being saved Mario is very cold and shows no emotions. I think this is a self-reflection on Stella. Stella was happy and successful, working at a very prominent hospital, then a change happens and she becomes the cold and self-contained women we see in the East Germany. In the end Mario is fixed and becomes as far as we know back to his old self and we find Barbara being fixed in the fact that she has made her decision and found where she belongs. I would also like to point out; a side note that caught my interest, and that would be the use of color blue. Barbara whenever she is not wearing her white robe and white doctors coat is always seen wearing blue. Also the cars in the movie are blue along with Stella’s clothes, Barbara’s bicycle and the Sea.
"She was sent over to the East side of Germany after being incarcerated "
DeleteNot quite. She IS East German but was sent to a provincial East German hospital from EAST Berlin's Charite because she requested to leave East for West German. So it's her own country that punished her, not West Germany that sent her east. (Same goes for Andre. She also doesn't go over to W German.) You would know this had you done any of the assigned readings for the film....
The film Barbara, was one of Petzold's first period pieces, and a film that you can clearly tell is particularly close to the director. What I mean by this is that Petzold is almost telling a story about someone who could be his relative. We learned that he was born in the west, but his parents were refugees, and his mother was even pregnant when she fled to the west. This was clearly an inspiration for Petzold to create this film, along with the books he mentions in his interview (one of coarse a clear inspiration even sharing the same title). While there is a bit of romance in this movie, between the titular character and the two men, there does not seem to be any clear connection between love and money like there has been in previous films. I believe I know why this is as well. Because this subject matter is so close to Petzold, I believe he was more concerned with creating an effective period piece reflecting the life these east germans were living rather than creating a deeply bedded love story. For me, watching the film i found it to be a far better story when looking at it as a piece of history and not as a love story. This is why I personally believe Petzold decided to stray away from the conventional love story, and focus less on the issues of love and money.
ReplyDeleteWell, a key sentence in the film is spoken by her West German boy friend, who tells her that once she's escaped she no longer would have to work because he makes enough money. This is something she rejects because she values her work (if not money). So the promise of wealth--plentitude--is put in question precisely because the system that generates it is more patriarchal than the system that struggles to generate wealth (East Ger), and yet B stays in EG. So the film does investigate the relationship between economic systems and people's relationships.... And CP discusses this in the interview, as does JF in his book chapter.
ReplyDeleteThe film Barbara (2012) takes place in the East Germany (When Germany was still separate). Nina Hoss plays the character of Barbara. Barbara seems to be a bit shaky, for, throughout the film, she wants to leave East Germany. The way Nina plays a serious and collective character sells the structure of that side of Germany. In the interview with Osenlund, Petzold talks about his location being set in a hospital "I was looking for a place where you can see the work and also have the dramatic structure of the story." The location of the hospital he chose works with Nina Hoss's character, for it solidifies to personality working as a nurse. Her lover Jorg (Mark Waschke) helps her out through the film by giving her money to escape, but in the end, all her secrecy and work comes to her letting Stella leave the country to start a new.
ReplyDeleteThe lighting in each sequence amplifies through bright hues of color. The dark scenes seem to have more focus shots than the day scenes. The reason is to capture the presence of the characters emotion compared to the day scene where natural lighting is in use to present the characters. Both the day and night scene, when transitioned to the indoors, objectifies the characters with different lighting techniques. The creative lighting conveys a sequence of security, whereas, the backlighting illustrates the intimacy between characters. The cutting edge use of lighting through lamps and other light sources work together to contract the indoor scene; exploiting the characters when the cuts interchange between characters. The sound technique of diegetic and non-diegetic structures the complexity of the film. It uses the diegetic sounds in collective key moments, like the wind blowing intensively. Whereas, the non-diegetic sounds are illustrated to build up the drama or employed in transitioning sequences.
"to personality working as a nurse" -- Barbara is an accomplished doctor, not nurse.
DeleteGood attention to light/sound.
As Lane pointed out above, and as it was pointed out in the Filmmaker Magazine interview, the film Barbara (2012) was heavily inspired by Petzold's own life. Both of his parents were refugees during the split between East and West Germany. In fact, much like Stella in the film, Petzold's mother was pregnant at the time of escaping. Because this subject matter is so close to Petzold, it makes telling the story of Barbara seem fluid and almost effortless.
ReplyDeleteOne of the points in the film that I figured came from personal experience, but was not mentioned in detail in the interview, came from the exchange between Barbara and Jorg in the Interhotel. Jorg tells Barbara that once they have returned to West Germany, she will not have to work ever again. He promises to support her because he makes plenty of money. While this may seem like a solid plan for some people, Barbara is obviously upset with this. She seems to deeply enjoy her job-- she's good at being a doctor, she knows her stuff, and she actually takes pride in her work. She has a strong sense of independence, and she takes value in making her own way. The act of being promised plenty of money verses the LOVE of her career is what really ties in with our class theme.
In the end, Barbara actively rejects this offer, choosing to stay within East Germany despite the promised freedom, wealth, and relationship that is in West Germany. She chooses the love of her career and the love of her own independence instead of taking the escape to West Germany.
For the first time this semester, I genuinely felt warm leaving Room 117, and I had no idea it would be a Christian Petzold film (based on my very limited knowledge) that would do it to me. It’s hard to not compare this film to Yella (2008), what with the single-female name carrying the title card, and it got compared to it in both of our accompanying readings. The two had essentially opposite endings, though. The transitions that the main character in Barbara (2012), Barbara (Nina Ross), is going through, not only are more likely a better opportunity overall, but actually get played out as she chooses the life she has been forced into.
ReplyDeleteThere is a focus on youth in this film that neither of the readings point out, and we continue to return back to it. From a child stirring in her sleep all the way to a young woman, Steffi (Susanne Bormann), attempting to change her stars, using her ticket of love to ride out of the German Democratic Republic (which Barbara immediately shuts down). This underlying commentary on the youth during this period is best explained with the inclusion of Stella (Jasna Fritzi Bauer) and the events that surround Mario (Jannik Schümann). Stella, whose pregnancy they originally tried to keep hidden from her, only to find out that she knew all along, and who eventually gets the opportunity to leave her suppressive situation on the GDR, is the person who gets the opportunity for the most change. Granted, her change parallels the transition away from West Germany that Barbara’s personal journey consists of, but at the end of the day, Stella gets her sympathetic story of hope completed. Now, her story may not exactly end up well, considering the fact that she is pregnant and entering somewhere she doesn’t know with a bag of money that probably won’t support an eventual new mother for long, but her story makes the most beautiful arc. Now Mario, whose attempt at suicide leaves him emotionless, unable to connect, becomes the perfect victim of this “country no one can live in.” The youth is who will inevitably struggle the most with this society’s fate, eventually dissociated and left connectionless. Barbara already has a job, and it is this job, which gives her a kind of freedom and independence, that she chooses over a life of “sleeping in” with her West German partner Jörg (Mark Washke). She has a chance to make something of the situation she finds herself in, and can find meaning in this way – the youth does not have this luxury.
Both readings talked about the use of color, which I noticed quickly when compared to the other Petzold films we have watched. This was probably a contributing reason as to why it took me so long to place the film in time, which sounded like it was on purpose, as Petzold states, “The feel of coldness is under the skin, and so we had to make a movie about the things that are under the skin, and not in the air. […] I wanted the skin of the women, and the skin of the men, and the color of the clothes, and the color of the shoes, to be great.” I agree that it helped draw one more into the conversations, the ideas, the feelings that were being had between the people, rather than getting caught up in the symbolism behind “this dirty snow, and this muddy light, to say that the people are cold there—in their hearts, and in their souls, and in the system.”
DeleteOverall, I was most impressed with such a hopeful ending. I didn’t want Barbara to end up with Jörg, but since that seemed like the sad, unhappy option characteristic (to an extent) of the previous films’ endings, I was honestly surprised that Barbara chose to stay with her job and warm, happy André (Ronald Zehrfeld). In this film, thankfully, things didn’t stay the same.
In Barbara, uses his own childhood to describe how Babara “ traversing political systems and states will irrevocably change her professional life” (Fisher). During the policital separation of East and West Germany, Petzold and his family knew both sides of Germany. His family had moved to West Germany to work and have a better life, but he still had family members in the east. By seeing both sides, he was able to incorporate this into why we see Barbara do the things she does. Everyone in the east is continuously surveyed and oppressed by a overhanging figure during this time and I liked how real he made it seem.
ReplyDeleteI did enjoy seeing how Petzold transitioned his film from a thriller to a romance. In the beginning we see her desire to escape the east and the Stasi who use “violence and dissidents” to control and spy on their people (Fisher 142). With this aspect in mind, Nina Hoss plays Barbara as a very tense and paranoid character, always looking over her shoulder to keep her plan from being known. To give us more understanding of this character, Petzold also chooses Barbara to read Huckleberry Finn to Stella, signifying to us how these four characters relate. Just like how two slaves want to escape the horrors of the South, Barbara and Stella want to escape the oppression of East Germany. Due to this high-risk plan, Barbara does not know who to trust and neither do we. What I especially found interesting was the lack of music within the film, and I think this was intentionally done to keep the suspicion and thriller nature of the film going. Music helps us to know how to feel during a particular scene, and without any extra-diegetic music, we are left in the dark. Like Barbara, we have no clue if someone is spying on her or even who that person is. However, as we see her work in the clinic, Hoss shows a completely different side of Barbara. In her work she is warm and caring and displays how capable and smart she is at her job. Through the scenes in the clinic, Petzold gives a more romantic vibe and illustrates how “love derives not only from reproduction but also production” meaning personal and work related relationships helped to blossom their love (Fisher 143). Through this, we see how love builds from a money related relationship. Without the work, we would have never seen Andre’s and Barbara’s progress. Worked helped to show each other who they really are and bring them closer together. Therefore, this fits in with the money and love theme we have.
"Petzold also chooses Barbara to read Huckleberry Finn to Stella, signifying to us how these four characters relate. Just like how two slaves want to escape the horrors of the South, Barbara and Stella want to escape the oppression of East Germany." Good observation! Also good point regarding the work-love relationship. Good use of / engagement with assigned reading.
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