Director Georg Maas and co-director Judith Kaufmann are far from big names in the movie industry, even here in Germany. So I was a bit surprised when their most recent project "Zwei Leben" ("Two Lives") was selected as the official submission to the Academy for this year's foreign language Oscar instead of "Oh Boy", the big winner from this year's national film awards. After watching "Zwei Leben" the other day, I can totally see why. Apart from Köhler's excellent performance, statistics are on her side as well. In the last 15 years several films starring her as a lead character made quite some waves abroad. "Aimée & Jaguar" managed a foreign language nomination at the Golden Globes, "Downfall", in which she played the Eva Braun to Bruno Ganz' Adolf Hitler was Oscar-nominated and Nowhere in Africa even won the Foreign Language Oscar ten years ago. Could this be her next coup?
We get to see flashbacks, but most of the film takes place in 1990, right after the fall of the Berlin Wall and illustrates besides the personal fate of the central character and everybody close to her, also the historic phenomenon of the "Lebensborn"-generation. This describes Aryan-looking children from German-occupied areas during World War II who were abducted to Germany for breeding purposes. When the War ended, many of these were on their own trying to make it back home and did not make it. Köhler does not play one of these children. She plays a Stasi informant who was planted in Norway for spying purposes and assumed the identity of Katrine Evensen, one of the aforementioned "Lebensborn"-children. At first, there was nobody but her mother, but not much later she marries under her new identity and gives birth to a daughter. Decades later she is still living the family life under her wrong identity. However, a recent investigation on possible compensation for the "Lebensborn"-children makes her facade crumble more and more, while we find out what happened to the real Katrine Evensen.
This film is a thrill-ride for over 90 minutes as well as an important history lesson on an issue which is not really known to many. I remember our curricula at school packed with material about the Nazis and World War II, but I'm surprised this was never included at all. It's shaping up to be an interesting year for the foreign language Oscar. The Saudi-Arabian entry is nothing short of magnificent either and if Denmark submits Mikkelsen's "Jagten", it could be one of the best group of nominees in years. Anyway, back to "Zwei Leben", besides Köhler's great work, also almost the whole supporting cast delivers convincing portrayals. Multiple Oscar-nominee Liv Ullmann is back after a break of many years and nails her scenes just like Nordin, Bache-Wiig and the duo of actors who portray the GDR-shadows from the past coming back to haunt Köhler's character. If there is anything I would criticize it was Ken Duken's portrayal. I've seen quite a few of his works and I just don't think he's a great actor at all, sadly. I'm yet to see a performance where he really becomes the character, just like the ladies do in this one, and the thick beard he spots in this one can't convince me. But that's really just a very minor deduction. I recommend this film a lot, not only to Norwegians and Germans, but also to everybody else. It's a deeply moving piece highlighted by Juliane Köhler's multi-layered portrayal of a victim-offender character and I truly hope it can make the nomination.
We get to see flashbacks, but most of the film takes place in 1990, right after the fall of the Berlin Wall and illustrates besides the personal fate of the central character and everybody close to her, also the historic phenomenon of the "Lebensborn"-generation. This describes Aryan-looking children from German-occupied areas during World War II who were abducted to Germany for breeding purposes. When the War ended, many of these were on their own trying to make it back home and did not make it. Köhler does not play one of these children. She plays a Stasi informant who was planted in Norway for spying purposes and assumed the identity of Katrine Evensen, one of the aforementioned "Lebensborn"-children. At first, there was nobody but her mother, but not much later she marries under her new identity and gives birth to a daughter. Decades later she is still living the family life under her wrong identity. However, a recent investigation on possible compensation for the "Lebensborn"-children makes her facade crumble more and more, while we find out what happened to the real Katrine Evensen.
This film is a thrill-ride for over 90 minutes as well as an important history lesson on an issue which is not really known to many. I remember our curricula at school packed with material about the Nazis and World War II, but I'm surprised this was never included at all. It's shaping up to be an interesting year for the foreign language Oscar. The Saudi-Arabian entry is nothing short of magnificent either and if Denmark submits Mikkelsen's "Jagten", it could be one of the best group of nominees in years. Anyway, back to "Zwei Leben", besides Köhler's great work, also almost the whole supporting cast delivers convincing portrayals. Multiple Oscar-nominee Liv Ullmann is back after a break of many years and nails her scenes just like Nordin, Bache-Wiig and the duo of actors who portray the GDR-shadows from the past coming back to haunt Köhler's character. If there is anything I would criticize it was Ken Duken's portrayal. I've seen quite a few of his works and I just don't think he's a great actor at all, sadly. I'm yet to see a performance where he really becomes the character, just like the ladies do in this one, and the thick beard he spots in this one can't convince me. But that's really just a very minor deduction. I recommend this film a lot, not only to Norwegians and Germans, but also to everybody else. It's a deeply moving piece highlighted by Juliane Köhler's multi-layered portrayal of a victim-offender character and I truly hope it can make the nomination.