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[Short Reviews]

THE LEGENDS OF RITA

Volker Schlöndorff’s Die Stille nach dem Schuß ( " The Quiet After the Shot " ) starts out with a group of self-indulgent West German terrorists (Red Army Faktion?) who migrate to Beirut and Paris and then East Berlin. Rita (Bibiana Beglau), disillusioned with unattentive boyfriend Andreas (Harald Schrott), stays behind when the rest make another foray into Beirut. East Germany gives her a new identity, or " legend, " and she falls for fellow factory worker Tatjana (Nadja Uhl), but she’s recognized, and the GDR moves her to a children’s summer camp on the Baltic, where she falls for handsome lifeguard Jochen (Alexander Beyer). He gets a career chance in the Soviet Union, but she can’t go, so that’s another break-up; and a reunion with her former comrade Friederike (Jenny Schily) reveals an unhappy marriage.

Schlöndorff paints a bleak, unprejudiced picture of a worker’s existence in East Germany, and he seems to hold no brief for the undepicted life of the decadent West, either. Yet though Rita should indeed be getting more help in the GDR, her past is the real culprit. And if I remember correctly, Schlöndorff manipulates the bummer ending (I saw Rita at the 2000 Berlin Film Festival; the screening tape I was provided ended abruptly after 86 of the movie’s 104 minutes). Still, this beats most of what’s in commercial theaters right now.

By Jeffrey Gantz

Issue Date: May 3-10, 2001





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