Dagmar Hirtz Movies

Greta Scacchi plays a famous feminist activist, while Vincent D'Onofrio portrays a humble Scots fisherman in this film from director Andrew Birkin. Despite the obvious ideological chasm between them, the two fall in love. The couple spend the rest of the film running away from commitment, only to be reunited at every turn. Salt on Our Skin is also known under the title Desire. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this mild drama, a Serbian girl from Yugoslavia (Mirjana Jokovic) has traveled into Germany with visions of a freer, more romance-filled life. Along the way she encounters all sorts of people who are as unsettled as she and confirms for herself that this cannot be her home, and that her native land -- whatever its faults -- is just the place she really wants to be. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, a little village which is so idyllic that, as one reviewer put it "even the cats and dogs are friends," is threatened with destruction, as plans are announced that it is slated to be demolished to make way for a new express train line. Internationally known star Elke Sommer is in the cast. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this informative and measured docudrama, director Margarethe von Trotta (who inherited the project from the late Rainer Werner Fassbinder) relates the life and times of Rosa Luxemburg. Von Trotta based her film on historical research and some of the more than 2,000 letters Rosa Luxemburg wrote during her active life. Luxemburg was a leader of both the German and Polish Socialist parties who advocated an anti-colonialist and pacifist stance on the issues of her day. This drama opens with a shocking prison scene: Rosa is set up for a mock execution while other prisoners are murdered around her. She is eventually released from prison to continue writing, talking, traveling, and exhorting others to join in the Socialist movement. Her lovers, her friends, and historical VIPs wend their way through her life year by year as she fulfills her destiny. Imprisoned on more than one occasion, Rosa did not escape her political enemies; she was assassinated on a January night in 1919 while walking with her friend Karl Liebknecht, who was also murdered. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Ines (Kathrin Ackermann) is an independent, modern professional working on a television documentary and living with Andreas (Klaus Gruenberg), a writer, when one of her friends attempts suicide and subsequently finds a temporary refuge with the couple. Whereas the suicidal friend Monika (Brigitte Karner) is overly dependent on men to give her life meaning and automatically serves others like a "true" female, Ines cares about Andreas and her friends within very carefully defined limits -- any emotional attachment or dependency would be taken as an embarrassing weakness. Ideally, Ines might be pushed to a more human balance somewhere between the extreme fragility of Monika and the tough rigidity of her friends when she gets a letter from a son that she has not seen since he was three years old. He is now 16, still living in the U.S. with his father, and wants to meet her. His request catalyzes her emotional development and forces her to communicate her feelings and this news to Andreas -- who proceeds to react with childish jealousy. As Ines begins to change in her attitude toward her long-ignored son, the subtleties of her awakening are expertly rendered. Director Dagmar Hirtz has created an intriguing and perceptive drama of a woman's gradual definition of her own self. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This two-hour documentary and fiction film was a cooperative writing effort by five different German writers and/or directors, one of the most noted being the 1972 Nobel prize winner Heinrich Böll. Böll was specifically responsible for three fictive episodes at the end of the film that promote an anti-nuclear, pro-peace message ("Space Talk," "Atom Bunker," and "Kill Your Sister"). Documentary footage of Chancellors Helmut Kohl and Helmut Schmidt in action, along with various European and American leaders highlight the urgent issues of the day. At a time when this film partly addresses these issues and partly hedges its bets, religious leaders in Europe were coming out with a very strong anti-war statement. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Also known as Die Bleierne Zeit (The German Sisters), Marianne and Julienne is an extension of themes explored by director Margarethe von Trotta in her earlier Sisters, or the Balance of Happiness. Once more, the principal characters are two well-bred sisters, outwardly polar opposites of one another, but birds of a feather in many ways. Marianne (Barbara Sukowa) is a radical terrorist, while Juliane (Jutta Lampe) edits a mainstream feminist magazine. The film explores how the same ideological words can be harnessed for both order and chaos, depending on how far an activist is willing to go. Von Trotta based her screenplay for Marianne and Juliane on the real-life Enslein Sisters. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Framed as the memories of a young schoolgirl in a small German village, this realistic, harrowing drama focuses on the lives of the girl and her acquaintances during World War II. She and her friends of varying ages come up against the harsh cruelties of war in several shattering experiences. One of them is almost raped by a bitter and disfigured soldier, another makes a suicide pact with her lover, a professed Nazi is sent home from the war as a paraplegic, while a young man against the Nazis is among those killed in a bombing raid. The inhumanity of war is not confined to physical wounds, violent death, or rape; the drama goes on to paint twisted psyches that have been bent by unholy circumstances. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Marianne (Birgit Doll) is driven from her father's home when she is impregnated by Alfred (Hanno Poeschi), a vagabond loafer who abandons her after he has his fun. She goes to Vienna and takes a job in a strip club to provide for herself and her baby. Her father discovers his daughter's tawdry vocation when he and his buddies go to the club for a night of leering and drinking. Marianne later has no choice but to go back to the butcher to whom her father promised her in marriage before she fell for Alfred. The story is taken from a play by Oedoen Von Horath and is directed with flair by Maximilian Schell. Watch for silent movie star Lil Dagover playing the role of Helene. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Actor Maximillian Schell functioned as coproducer and director of End of the Game. Conversely, director Martin Ritt is the leading actor in this existentialist crime story. Ritt plays Hans Barlach, a Swiss police inspector who has spent 30 years trying to pin the murder of the woman he loved on Richard Gastmann, an "untouchable" industrialist (Robert Shaw). When Barlach's assistant Donald Sutherland is killed while trying to get the goods on Gastmann, the inspector puts idealistic detective Walter Tschantz (Jon Voight) on the case. Jacqueline Bisset costars as Anna Crawley Sutherland's girl friend, who attempts to solve the case on her own. Author Friedrich Durrenmatt, long fascinated with the intangible aspects of Guilt and Innocence, wrote the novel (The Judge and His Hangman) upon which End of the Game is based. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Pedestrian (Der Fussganger) was the second filmed directorial effort of German actor Maximillian Schell. Billed third under Gustav Rudolf Sellner and Ruth Hausmeister, Schell plays Andreas Giese, a Krupp-like industrialist whose past suddenly returns to haunt him. A newspaper article reveals that Giese was responsible for the wartime destruction of a Greek village and the wholesale slaughter of the villagers. Whether or not Giese feels remorse for his actions is ultimately beside the point: his family is torn apart and his son kills himself as a result of the accusation. Here as in other films, Schell exhibits his fondness for female European film stars of days gone by: Elizabeth Bergner, Lil (Metropolis) Dagover, Francoise Rosay and Peggy Ashcroft appear in key minor roles. The winner of several international awards and a "best foreign picture" Oscar nominee, The Pedestrian was also produced and written by Schell. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Producer/director Maximillian Schell adapted the screenplay of First Love from a story by Ivan Turgenev. John Moulder Brown plays Alexander, a 16-year-old boy who falls in love with 21-year-old Sinaida (Dominique Sanda). Despite a great deal of emotional turmoil, exacerbated by the fact that Sinaida has been sleeping with Alexander's father, Alexander insists upon pursuing the relationship. His sexual coming-of-age is played out against the ominous backdrop of pre-World War II Europe. The film was originally released as Ein Leibe. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide