A Woman in Berlin
Strand Releasing | Release Date: July 17, 2009 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
74
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 16 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
That the film manages to be understated, calm and intelligent in spite of its wrenching subject matter is perhaps its most impressive accomplishment. In avoiding sensationalism, it feels very close to the truth. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
It's intelligent, provocative and intensely dramatic. Its subject matter may be tough but it is as powerfully authentic as anyone could want. Read full review
90
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
A distinctive achievement, a World War II movie unlike any other and one of the few films ever to address a topic that makes almost everyone want to look away: What happens to women in wartime. Read full review
80
Village VoiceElla Taylor
One of the best of a new breed of indigenous movies prying open the Pandora's box of German suffering in World War II, A Woman in Berlin takes on the mass rape of German women by victorious Russian soldiers entering the country in 1945. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
A Woman in Berlin is like a tour through the blast-cratered psyche of two colliding cultures, each with its own nightmarish tales to tell or acts of violence to experience. Read full review
75
New York PostV.A. Musetto
A Woman in Berlin, which is based on an anonymously written memoir of the same name, serves also as a testimony to women who put men in their place. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleWalter Addiego
A harrowing story about the will to survive amid the most brutal conditions imaginable. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The film is well-acted, with restraint, by Hoss and Sidikhin. The writer and director, Max Faerberboeck, employs a level gaze and avoids for the most part artificial sentimentality. The physical production is convincing. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
Joins such wonderful recent films as "The Lives of Others" and "The Baader Meinhof Complex" as a clear-eyed portrait of a highly charged chapter in Germany's history, a history that once again proves rewarding fodder for an alert artistic imagination. Read full review
70
NPRMark Jenkins
A Woman in Berlin doesn't justify retribution, but in such moments it does clarify the horrible logic of vengeance. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Anonyma stands out in A Woman in Berlin not only because of her ragged nobility but also because, alas, Färberböck has surrounded her with a gaggle of Berliners who seem right out of Central Casting. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianMarc Mohan
Like "The Reader," this film treads unsteadily over the terrain of German guilt. Read full review
60
Chicago ReaderAndrea Gronvall
Director Max Farberbock (Aimee & Jaguar) mainly avoids graphic depictions of sexual assault, but that only increases the tension in this austere, claustrophobic drama. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterPeter Brunette
The film ends up relying on stating a basic situation over and over rather than developing any sort of dramatic story concerning recognizable human beings, at least until things get moving a little faster in its second hour. Read full review
50
VarietyEddie Cockrell
A stately, intermittently gripping, ultimately overlong drama. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
Unfortunately, Färberböck never gives us reason enough to sit through such unremitting punishment. Though the story is based in truth, an emotionally removed Hoss feels more like a symbol than an actual person, while her detached narration keeps us at further remove. Read full review
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