08/15 – At Home

For me, the film was an attempt to map German production of the 1950s and its efforts to come to terms with World War II and Nazism. Unfortunately, this is not a second coming of The Bridge, and by that I mean the excellent German war drama from 1959. If the German production of that time was like this, then it is probably good that it was displaced by American blockbusters, because the average Hollywood product of that era is more professional and more acceptable to the audience. I have only seen the last part of the trilogy, and it is possible that as a result, some of the connections and situations may have been less understandable to me, but it is more likely a script mess with problematic acting of several characters, particularly the female characters, that slide into pure amateurism. There is an evident effort here to humanize the soldiers and reduce the guilt for war crimes to individual excesses and the NSDAP. Overall impression: 20%. (09/08/2010)