The Sins of Rose Bernd

FRG cinema of the 1950s and 60s saw several cycles of literary adaptations by the same writer. It might say a thing or two about the audience of those years that among those authors were two of the highest possible literary distinction: Thomas Mann and Gerhart Hauptmann. The former had been vilified in the first years after the end of WWII by the conservative and reactionary forces in Germany due to his emigration US-wards (as well as his unsparing comments about the German's willing support of the Nazis...); the latter, on the other hand, had stayed in fascist Germany and quietly accepted that the Nazis (ab)use his name – resulting ao. in one of the more notorious films of the period, Veit Harlan's Der Herrscher (1937). Considering the politically extremely ambiguous status of Hauptmann, it's fascinating that his works should inspire several of the 50s most outstanding films. The still most celebrated one is remigrant Robert Siodmak's FRG-debut Die Ratten (1955). That said: Those that followed often proved more daring, complex, twisted – none more so than Wolfgang Staudte's terribly underappreciated, expressive and unruly Rose Bernd that like all other 50s Hauptmann-adaptations re-imagined the original work in a contemporary setting, with the titular character being turned into a refugee. The atmosphere is doom-laden while full of wild-going-mad emotions – brought to the fore as much by the furious acting of Maria Schell as by the film's eye-popping colours. (OM) (Midnight Sun Film Festival)