Redwarmin This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Develiker terrible... so disappointed.

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

SnoopyStyle It's 1980 East Germany. Dr Barbara Wolff (Nina Hoss) is new in the backwaters hospital. She has isolated herself from all her colleagues. The secret police Stasi is keeping track of her for applying for an exit visa and she lost her job at a prestigious hospital in East Berlin. She can trust nobody even the chief doctor Reiser. There is a patient named Stella that has developed an attachment to Barbara. She is pregnant and is desperate to flee to the West.I love the idea of this story. This should be a tense thriller of paranoia and fear. Instead this is slow moving, reserved emotionally and quiet. The long takes, medium shots, and the stoic performances strip the movie of its tension. The fact that she is holding her feelings so tightly may be fitting for the story. It doesn't always allow people to feel her fears. It's a specific way to do this story and it works on that level.

doug_park2001 BARBARA may be a little too slow and humorless for many tastes, but it's one of those films that's so real it hardly seems like a film at all. You have to admire the stark realism here. Whether you want to go there or not, this film truly takes you to a secluded province of East Germany, 1980. BARBARA affords an acute look at the inside of a totalitarian state. While it doesn't show a whole lot in this regard, what it does is shown most effectively. The lack of any soundtrack--something I didn't even notice while viewing but that one of the reviews on Amazon pointed out--only adds to BARBARA's immediacy. Quietly immersing, with a real surprise at the end. Excellent cinematography and fine acting by all.

yagian I visited Eastern Europe, Berlin, Prague, and Budapest, in March 1990. At that time, the Berlin Wall had already been fallen down, but Germany had not reunited yet.People could freely come and go over the borders between East and West Germany. I went through Checkpoint Charlie to East Berlin, and I visited retro-future TV tower and saw Ladas running on street.In a night train from Berlin to Prague, I asked a passenger who sat next to me if Germany would reunite in a year, and he answered that he didn't believe it would happen so early. In fact, Germany reunited in October 1990.Although I actually visited East Berlin, now, it is hardly for me to believe that the half of Germany was a communist state just twenty-three years ago.--------------------"Barbara" is a German film about people living in East Germany in 1980. Barbara is a female doctor, who was watched by the secret police.It is one of the greatest German films that I have ever seen. There is no exaggeration and omission in this film. Every element in it is necessary, and I couldn't find that any things were unnecessary.This film is very quiet, because there is no background music. That makes audience concentrated in every tiny sound. Barbara was always nervous about the secret police, so she got surprised when the doorbell started to ring, and the audience also got really surprised with the sound of the doorbell, and fully understood her emotion.Nina Hoss, as Barbara, was also great and attractive. She didn't overplay at all, but accurately expressed how Barbara felt in her mind. After seeing her performance, most actors and actress became to look unnatural.This film is a quiet, simple, and elegant. If you love films, I strongly recommend you to see it.

Mike B Our Doctor Gloomy is so depressed and devoid of any happiness that this just wears you down after the first hour. I saw it at the cinema and was subconsciously pressing fast-forward. Even her encounters with her purported lover left me feeling empty. We never know why she has been ostracized by her East German government. She meets a new cohort at her new rural hospital and they have vague probing conversations together. The hospital is remarkable in that there are so few patients, possibly because people in East Germany are reluctant to get sick? We see our doctors eating in a rather large dining hall – and then they go off to work in the empty hospital corridors. Our Doctor Gloomy even has the time to read a book to one of her few patients. It was a translation of a Mark Twain book which got me thinking about how little I have read of this author. It's an indication of how unappealing a film is when your mind starts to wander off from the movie in front of you.