East German love

Hilma 2022-03-24 09:03:22

"Barbara", this is a film about East Germany,
I didn't know anything about this film before watching it. The opening scene struck me as bizarre: the doctor examining a child and talking to him softly. The doctors standing next to him, including the heroine Barbara, had heavy faces. I think it's very strange, what kind of hospital is this to be so indifferent to children?
It soon became clear to me that this was East Germany under Soviet rule, and the seemingly normal relationship between people was actually a relationship between surveillance and being watched.
The tone of this film is quiet and sad. Barbara had tried to immigrate to West Germany, so she was sent to a hospital in the town.
At the beginning of the film, the only doctor who shows tenderness exudes the warmth of still water. He silently cares about Barbara and takes the initiative to send her home every time. They share the same affliction, they are all intellectuals who are full of talents but have wandered to the small town.
At first, Barbara appeared to be a very cold and lonely person, and she didn't get close to anyone. Her warm side is on display when a young girl is taken to the hospital. The police brutalized the girl while Barbara comforted her like a mother, holding her for a spinal tap.
The film is very quiet, and those intense parts are deliberately hidden. Spinal puncture is very painful. I thought the girl would scream, but the director deliberately omitted this scene. When I was expecting that heart-piercing scream, the next scene immediately changed to the girl's done. Surgery, quietly lying in bed and fell asleep.
This flashpoint was deliberately suppressed, just as the fire in each character was suppressed by the cruel political environment.
The girl was found to be pregnant, and it was done by the doctor in his own laboratory. In order to protect her, he did not tell anyone else the news, but only told Barbara.
In his laboratory, he calmly recounts the reasons for his exile.
He once brought in a New Zealand-made incubator for the care of premature babies. Together with his assistants, he studied the use of the equipment in unskilled English. Later, when the equipment came into use, his assistant was overconfident and confused the Celsius and Fahrenheit temperatures. The United States uses Fahrenheit, but East Germany uses Celsius, 100 degrees Fahrenheit should be 37 degrees Celsius, but 100 degrees Celsius is the temperature of boiling water. The incubator was over-stressed, and a baby boy and baby girl inside were rescued, but blinded forever.
The doctor should have received a heavier punishment because of this accident, but the authorities exchanged conditions with him: he does not need to go to a labor camp or prison, but the authorities bribed him to be the eyes and ears of the government to monitor those who escaped or acted against the government in the town. people. He couldn't refuse. It's better to be an ear and an eye here, with one eye open and one closed, than to suffer in a labor camp.
The most daring thing Barbara said was: Socialist labor camps are concentration camps.
Frosty Barbara, when she really becomes a happy woman, is when she is with her boyfriend. They should have been together before East and West Germany split, her boyfriend lives in West Germany and sometimes comes to East Germany for business trips. Boyfriend often brings Barbara some good things from West Germany, like cigarettes or something. And, he made a detailed escape plan for Barbara.
However, there was another contradiction, and a boy who was in a severe coma came to the hospital. Barbara saw his girlfriend crying secretly in his room and ran to ask her, thus learning that the boy had attempted suicide. When he woke up, he reacted indifferently to everything. Barbara felt he should have a craniotomy.
After she discussed with the doctor, the doctor also decided to operate on the boy, but the operation happened on the day when Barbara was about to escape.
And by this time Barbara and the doctor were already in love. However, life is precious, and love is even more expensive. If it is for freedom, both can be thrown away. Barbara decided to run away anyway.
Barbara stayed during the day to help with the operation, and she prepared to escape at night.
Things didn't go according to people's wishes. The girl who had been in the hospital before escaped from the labor camp and ran to Barbara's house overnight with injuries.
Barbara fled with her and was tipped off by the landlady. Doctors and government officials came one after another, and the doctor was in a lot of pain, because if Barbara was caught, she would definitely be treated cruelly.
It was almost dawn, and Barbara and the girl were sitting by the sea. A man in a diving suit and dragging a rubber boat swam over. He raised a finger, meaning I can only take one person with me.
Barbara gave the girl a chance.
She went back to the hospital. At this moment, her boyfriend should already be in the Netherlands, but he certainly can't wait for Barbara, he can only wait for the girl. The movie doesn't say if she has had a miscarriage, and if she and her child survived all this ordeal, her child will be born free. These people who have successfully escaped will definitely take care of each other.
In the final shot, Barbara is back in the hospital, sitting with the doctor at the bedside of the boy who hasn't woken up after the surgery. It might just be a doctor's fantasy.
This story happened in 1978, 11 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. If Barbara hadn't been shot by the authorities and survived the torture of the labor camp, they would have been in their forties and fifties at that time, and they might have been able to accompany each other for the rest of their lives.

The first time I heard about the Berlin Wall was when I read an article in "Reader" when I was a child. It said that one day, a wall was suddenly erected in Germany, and people on both sides ran to the wall crying, and some people successfully ran past it. Some people didn't have time, so many families were suddenly separated on this day. In the morning, you will stop by the door from east to west, and you will never go back in the afternoon. They were separated by barbed wire, and their cries were earth-shattering.
At that time I thought it was very strange, there is such a thing in the world? People from a country can no longer communicate with each other because of a wall? What a dramatic scene this is!
A few years ago in the Newseum in Washington, I saw a few pieces of the Berlin Wall that had been transported over. You could easily tell which side was facing East Germany and which side was facing West Germany: the bare slab was East Germany, and the painting The graffiti-filled side is West Germany.
In the museum, I also read many tragic stories of East German citizens trying to escape to West Germany. One of the most impressive photos shows a teenager trying to get through the barbed wire, but he gets stumbled. It seems that there were several people sneaking through at that time, the first few succeeded, only he was hooked by the wire. At this time, the soldiers on the tower had found him, and he cried out for help in pain, and the reporter who took this photo was witnessing the whole process at the moment, but he couldn't do anything at all. The boy was killed soon after.
I've also seen a lot of weird ways of trying to escape, and it's a blur now. Those who succeed, gain freedom; those who fail, pay the price with their lives. This is the fear of tyranny, the desire for freedom, like in Braveheart, Mel Gibson shouts "FREEDOM" with his last breath before he dies! The people watching the lively and the executioners were shocked.
Today, there are still various forms of the Berlin Wall. There is a river not far from us, and many people try to swim across that river. This country has also opened some restaurants in our cities, known for beautiful girls, mysterious atmosphere and expensive dishes. I saw such a restaurant in Shenyang, with two beautiful girls in national costumes standing at the door. We wanted to take a photo from afar, but as soon as our phones were raised, they turned their heads and walked into the restaurant. This is strictly stipulated in their work code.
There is a girl on TED who tells her legendary escape experience, you can search for it.
There is also a film called "Eavesdropping Storm", which I saw in college many years ago. It is a pity that the spy in "The Wiretap" who discovered that his conscience protected the "reactionary" writers was completely fictional. In history, no West German spy sacrificed himself to protect the progressives who were being monitored because of sympathy for them. Find time to look it up, and write about your experience.
How much do you know about East Germany?



Some lines
Barbara tells the girl briefly after reading the story to the girl:
Girls: Die haben mirgesagt, ich konnte schon allein lesen. Dann warden sie mich bald abholen. Kannst du irgendwas fur mich tun, Frau Doktor?
They told me that I can read by myself now. They will come and take me soon. Can you help me think of something, doctor?
Barbara: Ich versutche's
I try.
Girl: Ich kann nichtnach Torgao zuruck. Ich halte es da nicht aus. Ich kriege ein Kind. Das mussweg.
I can't go back to the nursery. I can't stand there. I'm pregnant. Can't stay.
Barbara: Willst du'swegmachen lassen?
Are you going to have a miscarriage?
Girl: Nein, nicht so. Weg von hier. Weg aus diesem Scheisland.
No, not that. is to get out of here. Get out of this damn country.





Barbara wants the doctor to help the girls in the labor camp:
Barbara: Konnen Sie wasfur Stella machen?
Can you help Stella?
Doctor: Sie langerhierbehalten? Zwei Tage, drei vielleicht, Und dann? Keep
her a little longer? Two more days, three more days, what's next?
Barbara: Wissen Sie, wasTorgau ist? Der Werkhof Torgau? In Euphemismen sied Ihr gut. Der Werkhof istein Vernichtungsanstalt, eine sozialistische...
Do you know where Torgau is? Do you know about labor camps? You are relatively good at talking about detours. The labor camp is a concentration camp, socialist...





Barbara's conversation with a strange girl in a hotel room. The hotel was booked by Barbara's boyfriend and his colleagues, who were on a business trip, and I guess they were from West Germany. I do not know the extent of the Cold War between East and West Germany at that time, and whether there may have been official exchanges. They were probably together before the Berlin Wall was erected. The boyfriend went downstairs for a meeting, and a girl in pajamas came out of the next room, who was his colleague's girlfriend. When Barbara saw her, she just put her finger on her lips to signal her not to scream, and they started chatting.
Strange girl: Der hat gesagt, der will mich heiraten. Ich soll mir einen Ring aussuchen. Welchen wurdest dudir auch suchen? Sag mal, wenn der mich heiratet, lassen die mich dann hierraus?
He said he would marry me. I'm going to pick a ring. Which would you pick yourself? You say, if he really wants to marry me, will they let me go?
Barbara: Ich glaube nicht.
I don't think so.






Barbara at the doctor's house.
Barbara: Sind das allesArztgeschichten? Are
these all novels about doctors?
Doctors: Darin ist eine derschonsten Geschichten, Der Kreisarzt. Da geht's um einen alten, hasslichen Arzt, der zu einem schwindsuchtigen Madchen gerufen wird, aufs Land. Das Madchen hatFieber, 17 oder 18 Jahre alt… Dad Madchen hat noch nie geliebt und muss jetztsterben ohne je gelibt zu haben. Und so nimmt sie den alten hasslichen Arzt zuihrem Geliebten.
This is an interesting novel, The Country Doctor. It's about an old and ugly doctor who was called one day to treat a girl with tuberculosis. The girl has a high fever and looks seventeen or eighteen years old. She has never been in love, but now she has to leave with regret. So she took this old and ugly doctor as her lover.
Barbara: Er schlaft mitihr? Are
they together?
Doctor: Nein. Er ist nurder Stellvertreter fur all die Lieben, die sie nie haben wird…Un dann stirbtsie. Und er fahrt zuruck zu seiner Frau und zu seinen Kindern. Ich schenk'sIhnen.
No, the doctor is just a stand-in. After the girl died, the doctor returned to his wife and children. This book is for you.

View more about Barbara reviews

Extended Reading

Barbara quotes

  • André: Doctor Wolff will be working with us. She is from Berlin... from the Charite Hospital, and has decided...

    Assistenzärztin Schulze: We have introduced ourselves.