Insel Im See (1980) Reviews

In this poignant tale of a lonely old woman's past deed of heroism, a grandmother (Hertha Thiele) sits quietly weaving baskets at a lakeside villa and rows out to an island in the lake to collect reeds for her work. Her grandson is forced to defend her odd behavior one day and has to ask his father why she goes out so far in the boat when the same reeds grow near the shore. It slowly emerges that the woman has hidden a POW on the island during World War II and regularly rows there to keep him supplied with food. The man is captured by the Nazis in spite of her efforts, and when she is brought in for questioning, she said she was only collecting water reeds to make baskets. This film was part of a Hertha Thiele retrospective in Berlin in 1983. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi