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Critics Consensus: Smart, solidly grafted, and thoroughly gripping, Barbara offers a deliberately paced, subtly powerful character study.
Critic Consensus: Smart, solidly grafted, and thoroughly gripping, Barbara offers a deliberately paced, subtly powerful character study.
All Critics (77) | Top Critics (25) | Fresh (72) | Rotten (5)
It persuades us early on that its aura of political tension and suspicion, its taciturnity, its very strictness of silent observation as it begins, are fostering an intelligent thriller.
The movie examines the possibility of maintaining one's humanity in a truly oppressive society.
Hoss, wearing her blond hair pulled back tight, and wearing an expression of inscrutable melancholy, gives a performance that doesn't feel like a performance at all.
The occasional ravings of the patients, ringing off the walls in Petzold's measured quiet, provide an appropriate backdrop to the heroine's need for freedom, yet the movie's politics never trump its humanity.
This is well-trod ground for Petzold, but never has it been so fully realized, so palpable, as in "Barbara."
Hoss is fantastic. Barbara is ice cold at the start, understandably so. Yet Hoss makes her sympathetic.
A gripping and extremely compelling example of new German cinema at its very best.
You'd think the story of a woman trying to escape East Germany in 1980 would have plenty of thrills, but "Barbara" is disappointingly bland.
Conventional thrillers operate by being stingy with details. Petzold does the opposite; the result is a tense, controlled film that never feels constricting.
...where there's a rough, stormy beauty to this seaside village, it's also something of a prison without walls, which is not lost on this inmate.
Hoss is such a star, one of the finest actresses in the world. Her work with Petzold is exceptional, but I find myself wondering what Fassbinder would have done with her.
A quietly tense drama ... builds slowly to its conclusion, as subtly powerful as it is inevitable.
A subtle romance with a historical context and great performances, blending love and politics in an engaging story that also explores the curious contrast between the vivid landscape of East Germany's countryside and the sad universe the protagonist is forced to live in.
Super Reviewer
The East German secret police had a reputation for brutality in supporting the communist regime. Here within the tranquility of a country setting, the politics surrounding a nurse banished from the big City is disturbing and yet fascinating to behold.
Dr. Barbara Wolff(Nina Hoss) has been transferred to a hospital in the provinces in East Germany in 1980 against her wishes. In return, she has no intention of giving her Stasi minder Klaus Schutz(Rainer Bock) nor anybody else the satisfaction of thinking they have won. That extends to not eating with any of her fellow doctors. However, she still has to work with them, as she correctly diagnoses Stella(Jasna Fritzi Bauer), a young woman in trouble with the law, with meningitis, thus greatly impressing Dr. Andre Reiser(Ronald Zehrfeld), one of her colleagues. So instead of sitting around her sparse apartment all day in her bathrobe, Barbara decides to fix her bicycle and go for a day trip in the country which her minders have a problem with when they lose track of her for several hours. First off, Nina Hoss is one of the best actors working today and certainly does not disappoint with her latest performance in "Barbara," succeeding in playing a difficult character. And I also liked how the movie gradually reveals Barbara's backstory while featuring perhaps my favorite scene of the year where Dr. Reiser dissects the Rembrandt painting in his office. That's not to mention all of the random details of life in East Germany that help to complete the picture. Sadly, the story is pure cliche, filled with contrivances, and filed under the city doctor going to the country and being surprised by what she finds.(I've never seen "Doc Hollywood," so I'll go with "Northern Exposure" instead. And I guess this is proof that "House" was shown in Germany.) And with any old plot, it also makes the movie that much more predictable. Of perhaps greater concern is the fact that it muddles the movie's politics, not so much as to which side are you on, but adding a definite grey area that also extends to Barbara's motives in her struggle against being violated.
'Barbara'. A surprisingly sweet-natured story on giving up "freedom" for happiness. Was expecting a psychological breakdown :/
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