When a film critic of the stature of the LA Times’ Kenneth Turan starts a review like this, you definitely want to see first hand what he is talking about:

“A Woman in Berlin" is the best movie you're not going to see this year. You're going to read this review, maybe some others, you'll say, "That sounds good," but you won't go because the subject matter is difficult to handle. So difficult, so taboo, that it caused a scandal in Germany that lasted nearly half a century.

Not going, however, would really be a shame, because this powerfully told, devastating film, directed by Max Färberböck ("Aimee & Jaguar") and starring German actress of the moment Nina Hoss, is everything you want in adult narrative cinema: It's intelligent, provocative and intensely dramatic. Its subject matter may be tough but it is as powerfully authentic as anyone could want. Read the full LA Times review.

Max Faerberboeck directs this gripping drama set in the days after Russia’s invasion of Berlin in 1945. Anonyma (Nina Hoss, YELLA) is surrounded by women, children, and men too weak or old to fight in the war, and there is no one to defend her from the ravenous appetites of the invading army. After she and many of the women around her are raped, Anonyma picks Russian soldier Andrej (Evgeny Sidikhin) to be her protector, and they come to a compromise: if she has sex with him, he will keep her from his fellow men. Anonyma and Andrej embark on a strange relationship, and despite the appearance of affection, there is never any doubt of their positions in the world and the war. Based on an international bestseller, A WOMAN IN BERLIN also stars Irm Hermann, Rudiger Vogler, and Juliane Koehler.

In German and Russian with English subtitles.

The film is well-acted, with restraint, by Hoss and Sidikhin. The writer and director, Max Faerberboeck, employs a level gaze and avoids for the most part artificial sentimentality. The physical production is convincing.  -- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times 

A sprawling, difficult, powerful film. -- A.O. Scott, New York Times

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