Marianne and Juliane (1981)

Original title

Die bleierne Zeit

Directed by

Margarethe von Trotta

Genre

drama film, historical film

Country

Germany

Runtime

1h 46m

Rated

16

Rating

7.0 of 10 from 81 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

Two sisters grow up in post-war Germany and take very different paths. One becomes a journalist, the other a radical activist involved in political violence. The film follows their complicated relationship and how their choices shape their lives.

somberintrospectivetensemelancholicrestrainedseriousslow-burnprobing

What happens

Marianne and Juliane (German: Die bleierne Zeit; lit. "The Leaden Time" or "Leaden Times", referring to the 1950s in West Germany), also called The German Sisters in the United Kingdom, is a 1981 West German film directed by Margarethe von Trotta. The screenplay is a fictionalized account of the true lives of Christiane and Gudrun Ensslin (1940–1977). The original German title refers to the authoritarian "Leaden Time" of the 1950s, which von Trotta suggests led to the sisters' rebelliousness, and ultimately to Gudrun's later role as a leading member of the Red Army Faction. In the film, von Trotta depicts the two sisters Juliane (Christiane) and Marianne (Gudrun) through their friendship and journey to understanding each other. Marianne and Juliane was von Trotta's third film and solidified her position as a director of the New German Cinema. Marianne and Juliane also marked the first time that von Trotta worked with Barbara Sukowa. They would go on to work on six more films together. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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