It's right before WWII in Germany. Lene is a rather plain pensive girl and her dark hair makes her less desirable in the race obsessed country. She meets kind Hans and they get married. Hans is conscripted and sent to the front. Lena gives birth to their daughter Anna. Life is a struggle in war-torn Germany. The couple struggles to remain connected. After the war, they try to return to normal but then she suffers a facial paralysis.

The movie is much too slow at the start. It doesn't really pick up the pace but at least, there is a bit more tension with the war going on. The leads are not terribly charismatic but that's kind of the point. The production and the old war footage leave the movie with a slightly unreal feel. It's a depressing movie.

"Deutschland bleiche Mutter" or "Germany Pale Mother" is a West German 2-hour movie from 1980, so this one already had its 35th anniversary last year. The writer and director is Helma Sanders-Brahms, a filmmaker who died 2 years ago and was probably among Germany's most impactful female directors of the 20th century. This one here is her most known work I guess. But sadly, I cannot share the praise. The question if and how much you end up liking this film is closely connected with how much you like lead actress Eva Mattes in here as she is in basically every scene from start to finish. I have liked her much more in some other films I saw and she feels sometimes pretty much off the mark and over-the-top in here. This is especially disappointing as the topic deserves a much better film. I also cannot say that I was too fond of the script in general or the male lead actor Ernst Jacobi in here. Mattes plays a woman who lives on her own in Nazi Germany after her husband goes off to war and also after the war has ended she is still alone for quite a while until her man finally returns home from imprisonment. In the meantime she is mother of a daughter and a lot more has changed, also her man's state of mind and, last but not least, her own sanity. At times, it is a pretty tough watch and there is no other appropriate description for this film in terms of genre other than drama. It is not a failure by any means, but I also did not think it was a worthy addition to the best watches in terms of "Trümmerfrauen" films. But then again, it seems as if the focus is much more on the two protagonists than on the historic context and this was a negative aspect as well in my opinion. All in all, the bad outweighs the good and this film dragged considerably during its 120 minutes runtime. I give it a thumbs-down.

Originally showcased at the 1980 Berlin Film Festival, this was initially criticised for being far too long – that being 151 minutes. So it was edited down to just two hours and has become seen as a German classic in the intervening years. It tells the story of Hans and Lene who meet before the outbreak of World War II and fall in love – both are not pro Hitler and so are not Party members. It opens with the poem of the title 'Germany Pale Mother' by Berthold Brecht and it is read by his daughter. It was penned in 1933 but to hear it today it would be easy to mistake it being about Hitler and the War.

When Germany invades Poland Hans is called up and so begins the long years of separation. In the meantime they have a daughter – Anna – who is the narrator of the film and tells their story through her eyes and the experiences of a child. The war is cruel and then when it is over the cruelties seem to get worse. This film spans many years and the heartbreaks and travails of just existing – let alone surviving.

This is not a war film – it uses archive footage (which looks very aged indeed) interspersed with the later material to try to place the story better in the historical context. The acting is all superb –but the story is depressing. It is meant to be depressing I think to ram home the cost of war and what it does to the body, mind and even the soul. There are some very hard to watch scenes here and at the full length this does need some commitment. There is a line that is possibly meant more as a plea than a statement and that is when Anna says 'who am I to judge, I was just lucky enough to be born later'. German speakers will not be impressed by the sub titles though – pretty average as far as they go. This though is a great film, it is one that the BFI have helped restore and it is a difficult watch, but it is also a film that needs to be seen if only for its message and it needs to be preserved in the hope that such folly will never be repeated.