Directed by Christian Petzold  Reviewed by Paul Sorrell

Like another film set in the former East Germany, The Lives of Others (reviewed in Tui Motu magazine, July 2007), Barbara explores how common humanity can be kept alive in a totalitarian society where citizens’ movements are controlled and watching eyes and listening ears are everywhere. It also deals with the emergence of love, compassion and self-sacrifice in a wholly unpromising environment.

Beautiful, elegant and fiercely independent, Dr Barbara Wolff (Nina Hoss) has been sent to work in a provincial hospital after falling foul of the authorities in East Berlin after applying for an exit visa. We follow her around on her first day in her new job, where she holds herself aloof from her colleagues, her every act guarded and considered. Barbara appears self-contained to the point of coldness.

She is particularly wary of her boss, Dr André Reiser, despite his friendliness and evident attraction to her. She has good cause to be, as he, too, fell from grace following a medical misadventure — at least, that is the story he tells her — and part of his penance involves reporting on his colleagues, especially those with a less than perfect past.

But Barbara is no innocent herself, as unfolding events make clear. We see her retrieving and stashing packages at a drop-off point along her cycle route to work and having assignations with a lover who, it transpires, is making plans for them to escape together to the West. There is much to escape in her present circumstances, despite the beauty of the rural setting. The drab, peeling buildings and squat Trabant cars project an atmosphere of neglect and spiritual decay. The constant surveillance to which Barbara is subject sometimes turns intrusive and brutal, and even everyday exchanges are curt and functional.

But, almost despite herself, Barbara is drawn into the life of the hospital and becomes involved with Stella, a young runaway from a state institution, and Mario, a lad who has attempted suicide as the result of a broken relationship. Gradually, their plight engages her compassion and draws her away from the allure of the West and the material wealth and security that it promises.

What happens at the end of the film is unexpected, even shocking but, considered in the light of Barbara’s inner trajectory, it marks a turning point on her path to maturity and a fuller humanity that her repressive environment is powerless to hinder.