Cinema
'38 – Vienna Before the Fall
38 – Auch das war Wien
Wolfgang Glück · 1986
Synopsis
Vienna, 1937. Carola Hell, a young actress at the Theater in der Josefstadt on the threshold of a fine career, loves Martin Hofmann, an assimilated Jewish writer, and moves in with him. Both want to live their love apart from politics; when Drechsler, a journalist friend, warns them that the Austrian Nazis are about to take power, they prefer their work and their happiness. A tour in Berlin nevertheless brings Carola face to face with the Gestapo.
Context
The film adapts Friedrich Torberg's novel Auch das war Wien, which remained unpublished until 1984. Sunnyi Melles and Tobias Engel play the two leading roles, and the story is divided between Vienna and Berlin, from 1937 to March 1938. An Austro-German coproduction, the film was released in Austria in 1986 and in West Germany on 23 April 1987. German critics were reserved, reproaching it for the nostalgia of its images and the abundance of its dialogue.
Who it is for
A slow film, with no spectacular scene, whose effect lies in what does not happen. One has to know what will happen in March 1938 to read what is at stake beforehand.
Prizes and reception
The first Austrian nomination for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, in 1987, in the midst of the Waldheim affair; the prize went to the Dutch film The Assault.
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