User reviews

Based on the the life of Guste and her family a fast-paced, lively and precise study is given of the Berlin working classes from 1884 till 1949. No great issues are treated, the film simply shows that however small or big the events inside or outside the family life - from social revolution and Nazi period till the change in fashion - are, all these events have same influence on the family. A real good example of old-fashioned story telling (and I use the term in a positive meaning) that despite a couple of unavoidable and too emphatic, political Gospels is pleasurable viewing.

The fine cast includes quite a number of important names, and is lead by Camilla Spira who superbly plays Marie.

I agree with most of the previous review, though I think it did deal with important issues, even if from a "Communist" perspective. Not least Guste's realisation that working in a munitions factory while her husband was at war was contributing to the profits of the munition makers. However, she was lucky that her husband survived the Great War. The German hyper-inflation in the twenties was cursorily dealt with, possibly because of its contribution to the rise of the NSDAP. This was insidiously treat: the realisation that nasty things were happening: speaking out becoming dangerous, the way the Jewish family next door suddenly vanishing, the reaction to Guste's attempts to stop their possessions being sold: "They won't be coming back." The sets and settings were well done, not least the interiors of the rich houses and those of the poor. Notable moments were the troops singing the Horst Wessell Lied, the Head teacher shouting "This is a Prussian school!" when Guste asks if anything can be done to ensure children have breakfast before they come to school, the nice doctor treating Guste's dying husband who turns nasty when she expresses Social Democratic views, and Guste's reaction when told her one of her children and two grandchildren were not burnt to death in an air-raid but drowned in their cellar when a water-main broke. (As an aside, I think the short clip of bombs being dropped from plane did not show an Allied plane.