Counting down to the EFAs | Barbara

Country: Germany

Director and screenwriter: Christian Petzold

Starring: Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld, Rainer Bock, Jasna Fritzi Bauer, Christina Hecke

NOMINATED FOR: Best Film, Actress (Nina Hoss)

It may be among one of the most concisely-titled of the European Film Awards nominees, but this slow-burning thriller set in segregated 1980s Germany bears close resemblances to two box office mouthfuls also in the running: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia.

Like TTSS, Petzold's story of a doctor (Barbara, played by the spikily beautiful Nina Hoss) who is 'exiled' from West to East Germany for attempting to obtain a travel visa, details the dehumanising effect of having to live under a veil of secrets.

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And its central emotional drama - deriving as it does from a social and geographical divide of East and West, and climaxing in lonely, bleak hilltops where nature dwarfs its human inhabitants - is perfectly matched in the equally intimidating Turkish terrain of OUTA, with all the hidden dangers implicit within it.

But Petzold roots Barbara's journey in firmly down-tempo terrain, choosing to focus on an uneasy relationship between the protagonist and fellow physician Andre (Ronald Zehrfeld).

Originally charged with cosying up to Barbara by the Stasi, Andre begins to develop genuine feelings for his new colleague.

But Barbara's heart belongs to a lover she was ripped away from by the Stasi.

Though their passionate encounters are brief and fleeting, Barbara is promised a cosy life in the west, if all goes as planned.

But in a world of insidious confines, there can be no guarantee of freedom.

Aided by the brilliantly reserved Hoss, Petzold makes expert use of minimal material - spinning a story of humanity gradually squeezed dry of all hope by a quietly repressive regime. 

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