Faberbock’s movie is one more sign of a new German willingness to grapple with the Nazi era. The film is opening just two months before the country’s capital begins its move back to Berlin from Bonn. It will debut in the midst of a fierce debate among Germans about what kind of Holocaust memorial should be built in the city that headquartered the Third Reich. And it is one of the first German-made films to tackle the Holocaust from a personal–not documentary–perspective. Such movies, from the 1979 TV mini-series ““The Holocaust’’ to ““Sophie’s Choice’’ and ““Schindler’s List,’’ have played well in Germany, but they’ve been imports from Hollywood. ““There’s a new generation of filmmakers, with a new maturity and a readiness to see things in a different way,’’ says Erica Fischer, the Austrian-Jewish author of the book on which the movie is based. Are German audiences ready for yet another new take on their painful history? ““The public will be able to cope with it,’’ predicts Fischer.
The Berlin of the film is a city terrorized from above by Allied bombers and below by the Gestapo. It’s also a promiscuous place, where the proximity of death drives people to take whatever pleasures they can. Lilly Wust, the German housewife, entertains Nazi officers in her bed while her husband is away; Felice Schragenheim is part of a mostly Jewish circle of lesbians who party and change partners as they try to elude their hunters. ““It’s not a movie just full of tears and regrets,’’ says Maria Schrader, the actress who plays Felice. ““It’s really a kind of wild story.''
At its center is Schrader’s Felice, who combines reckless courage with steely self-control in the face of unbearable tension. She dares to woo Lilly, whose apartment sports a bust of Hitler, and she takes a job at a Nazi newspaper to help gather information for fellow underground Jews. The movie’s pivotal moment comes when Lilly demands that Felice tell the truth about her mysterious comings and goings. Risking all, Felice reveals that she is Jewish. After a flicker of confused hesitation, Lilly, who had mindlessly repeated anti-Semitic statements earlier in the film, swiftly changes sides.
The ending of the movie is no surprise, since the only mystery is how their affair could have lasted as long as it did. Lilly urges Felice to flee, but without conviction; she wants Felice with her. Felice passes up offers to join other Jews who are escaping from Berlin, and the Gestapo finally tracks her down. Dispatched to a concentration camp, Felice probably perished in one of the death marches from the camps as the war was ending. Portrayed as an old woman at the close of the film, Lilly wants to believe that Felice would have been her partner for life if she had survived. But in a moving flashback, Felice frankly talks about her wish to have it all–one true love, and all the loves in the world.
Felice’s courage rubbed off on Lilly, who went on to save three other Jewish women. Now 85, Lilly still lives in Berlin–and still talks about Felice as the great passion of her life. ““I have never stopped loving her,’’ she says. She has carefully preserved all of their correspondence and the photographs they took of each other. Until recently, she had planned to have those mementos sent to Israel upon her death, away from a Germany she despised for what it had done. But the book and now the movie have prompted her to alter her will: the papers and photographs will instead be donated to the new Jewish Museum in Berlin. ““It’s where they belong,’’ she says. Touching the ““wedding’’ ring Felice gave her so long ago, she adds: ““I don’t want her to disappear among the millions who were murdered. I want to keep the memory of my friend alive.’’ With their powerful on-screen portrayal, Germany’s new generation of filmmakers may have granted her wish.
