Die Bleierne Zeit
1981 / 106m - West Germany
Drama
0.5*/5.0*
Marianne & Juliane poster

Watches

December 19, 2021

0.5*/5.0*

An extremely dreary German drama. It's (in my experience at least) one of the least cinematic countries, especially when looking at their more contemporary output. Marianne & Juliane is a film that wants to make a point and doesn't seem to care about anything else, the result is core ugliness.

Marianne and Juliane are two sisters with very different personalities. Both fight for improved women's rights, but Juliane does so as a reporter, while Marianne joins a terrorist organization. She ends up in jail, where she is heavily mistreated by the police. Juliane doesn't agree with Marianne's methods, but she won't let her sister down.

The performances are terrible, the cinematography atrocious and the soundtrack feels tacked on. The social critique may hit home harder for those with a better understanding of the material, but the film makes little effort to get its audience interested. As far removed from my preferred type of film as can be.