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Post by Aj_June on Aug 2, 2018 6:32:15 GMT
One that I highly recommend is Die Brücke (1959). It is essentially an anti-war movie and probably the most famous anti-war movie from Germany. Unlike other great WWII films, there is not a unanimous agreement on whether The Bridge (1959) is a great film or not. There are critics who question its direction and there are critics who question the acting. There also a few who find its start to be very slow. However, there are film critics on other side of the debate who consider it a top notch movie. I tend to agree with them as I personally found The Bridge to be an extremely beautiful movie.
The Bridge's storyline is not something new. Showing horrors of war that newly recruited young men or boys have to face. What makes this movie very meaningful is the beautiful character development depicted. The slow start was not for no purpose. The directed did a great job of making you aware of the normal life that teenage boys were leading before being recruited and making you intimately connected with each of them. As you see their simple lives you grow more and more engaged with each character. Once you are midway you will find it truly believable (from the point of view of a German youth) why a German should have been proud of being Germans (even during the Hitler days). The youth and innocence win over your heart and you do rather not see them die. I still remember the agony and disbelief on the face of the teacher of these boys once the news came that they are to be recruited. But the movie's central characters are not the teachers and adults but the youth. Remember that most of those youth of that time period were born in the Nazi days. So Hitler's propaganda was no propaganda for them. They loved their fatherland and were willing to fight for it. What happens next is for you to see and feel.
My Rating: Solid 9/10
Please list other good movies that depict things from the German perspective.
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Post by OldAussie on Aug 2, 2018 7:31:50 GMT
Cross of Iron
A Time to Love and a Time to Die
Downfall
Valkyrie
The Desrt Fox
Das Boot
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Post by Aj_June on Aug 2, 2018 9:29:04 GMT
Cross of Iron A Time to Love and a Time to Die Downfall Valkyrie The Desrt Fox Das Boot Thanks. I have previously read about Cross of Iron and Das Boot but I have never seen any of them. Some good movies that I can see in the coming days.  |
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Post by mattgarth on Aug 2, 2018 10:22:46 GMT
THE BRIDGE -- West German film from 1959 about teenage boys in the last weeks of WWII forced into military service.
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Post by timshelboy on Aug 2, 2018 10:26:57 GMT
Highly recommend Rene Clement's 1947 THE DAMNED, about a French doctor abducted by escaped Nazis at the end of the war and held on a submarine bound for South America
Also the Brit made THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY with Hardy Kruger as sympathetic German POW
A third of THE YOUNG LIONS is told from the viewpoint of the Germans - and sections of THE LONGEST DAY
SUITE FRANCAISE offers a WW2 romance between hot Nazi Matthias Schoenaerts, who we know is nice because he likes dogs, plays the piano and doesn't enjoy executing the villagers, and moody, oppressed daughter in law and wife with hubbie a POW...Michelle Williams He is billeted in her mother in law's house and their love is VERBOTEN, which makes it all the hotter I guess. As a bonus you get current it girl Margot Robbie as the village tramp.
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Post by politicidal on Aug 2, 2018 12:34:46 GMT
Cross of Iron A Time to Love and a Time to Die Downfall Valkyrie The Desrt Fox Das Boot Thank heaven someone else remembers Valkyrie;good movie. |
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Post by bravomailer on Aug 2, 2018 12:48:11 GMT
The final battle in Saving Private Ryan pays homage to Die Brücke The bridges are similar in appearance. The grinding sounds of the approaching tanks and the looks on the faces of the waiting defenders are also quite similar. Furthermore, there is an execution scene followed by a command to “Verschwindet!” (Beat it!) in both films.
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Post by bravomailer on Aug 2, 2018 12:48:34 GMT
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Post by bravomailer on Aug 2, 2018 12:50:29 GMT
Odd one here. A compilation of footage made by German soldiers:
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Post by timshelboy on Aug 2, 2018 12:53:24 GMT
those with taste for the fruity might like ORDERED TO LOVE about fit frauleins being forced to propagate the Nazi species with fit blond guys in secret Nazi love camp rituals!!!!. As the most lurid thing they seem to do is get a bit drunk and sing a lot whilst occasionally leaping over a bonfire it comes across more as a racy scout camp jamboree rather than the last word in Master Race depravity
If you want depraved though there are the ILSA SHE WOLF OF THE SS movies |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 2, 2018 13:26:59 GMT
Generation War (2013) is an excellent German TV mini-series about five friends and their lives during WWII.
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Post by teleadm on Aug 2, 2018 17:37:51 GMT
Late in his career director Georg Wilhelm Pabst made two movies concerning WWII:  aka Ten Days to Die aka The Last Ten Days 1955, about the last ten days of Adolf Hitler.  aka It Happened on July 20th 1955, about the July 1944 attempt by German Army Officers to assassinate Hitler with a bomb and end the war before Germany was totally destroyed. |
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Post by koskiewicz on Aug 2, 2018 18:09:44 GMT
...for WWI, it has to be "All Quiet on the Western Front" w/Lew Ayres
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Post by The Herald Erjen on Aug 2, 2018 18:21:48 GMT
Some good ones named here. It's going to be hard to think of any more.
"Desert Commandos" (1967). Good story, and you can tell they filmed it in Morocco, not a sand-covered backlot. Nice ending, I thought.
"The Bunker" (2001) A war/horror movie set in Belgium in 1944.
Also, the scenes with Marlon Brando in "The Young Lions" depict the war from the German perspective, but it is not for the entire film.
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Post by Doghouse6 on Aug 3, 2018 0:12:04 GMT
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Post by london777 on Aug 3, 2018 0:12:59 GMT
THE BRIDGE -- West German film from 1959 about teenage boys in the last weeks of WWII forced into military service. Do try and keep up, Matt!  (see OP) |
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Post by london777 on Aug 3, 2018 0:24:10 GMT
Thanks. I have previously read about Cross of Iron and Das Boot but I have never seen any of them. Some good movies that I can see in the coming days. There are various versions of Das Boot. If you buying from scratch, the best and most complete is the complete TV mini-series (4h 53min) which was issued in film format on DVD. But if you acquire another version cheaply or free, not to worry, they are all good. Interestingly, Das Boot is one of the few non-English title films which is always referred to in the original language, presumably because the title is short and simple to say. (Would not work with Rękopis znaleziony w Saragossie for example). La Ronde (1950) is another. Can you think of others? |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2018 0:26:47 GMT
"Churchill: The Greater Evil" (1946)
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Post by london777 on Aug 3, 2018 0:41:10 GMT
Europa Europa (1990) As Solomon's secret is threatened by everything from bathing and physical exams to sexual encounters, and he forms alliances and feigns loyalties as matters of survival, Europa Europa becomes a surprising and thoughtful examination of the complex and contradictory natures of humanity, and is the type of film that may very well stay with a viewer long after its conclusion. I second that recommendation. What it shows is that people are usually willing to think the best of others, and give them the benefit of the doubt, unless brainwashed to do otherwise. This film could have appeared in my con-artist thread, except that most people were only too ready to welcome Solomon into their circle without his needing to do much "conning". Mind you, being young and good-looking helps. Let us give a credit to the director Agnieszka Holland who also wrote the script. |
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Post by london777 on Aug 3, 2018 1:06:31 GMT
Not a German-made movie and one of dubious ideology, Decision Before Dawn (1951 dir: Anatole Litvak) may be of interest. It uses many German actors, and hundreds of former German prisoners of war were employed to play German soldiers. Litvak shot on location in German cities where (at that date) reconstruction had hardly begun and the ruined buildings and gaunt faces of the German "soldiers" and civilians are compellingly realistic. It concerns the recruitment of selected German PoWs who were disillusioned with Nazism as spies for the Allies behind the lines. The odd thing is, that although the story was basically true, it did not ring true to me. It was a propaganda film, designed to: 1) Persuade the US populace that not all Germans were fiends with two heads 2) Persuade the German populace that those who opposed Nazism were the real German war heroes But the super-realism of the locations are what makes it worth watching.   |
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(see OP)