Barbara

Name: Barbara
Genre: Drama
Released: December 21, 2012
Duration: 105 min
Rating: 86

2012

METASCORE

Universal acclaim based on 22 Critic Reviews

See All

USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 49 Ratings

See All

7.0

VOTE NOW

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

7.0	Your Score
7.0	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 49 Ratings

Would you like to write a review?

There is a 75 character minimum for reviews. If your review contains spoilers, please check the Spoiler box. Please do not use ALL CAPS. There is no linking or other HTML allowed. Your review may be edited for content. 0/5000

Check box if your review contains spoilers

Movie Details & Credits

Adopt Films | Release Date: December 21, 2012 | PG-13

Summary: A doctor in 1960s East Germany makes the mistake of applying for an exit visa and is, as a result, banished to a small hospital in the hinterlands.

Director: Christian Petzold

Genre(s): Drama

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 105 min

See All Details and Credits

Watch Now

Buy on

Stream On

Metascore

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

Critic Reviews

100

Kenneth Turan

Dec 21, 2012

It's one terrific film, as smart, thoughtful and emotionally involving as just about anything that's out there. Read full review

100

Sam Adams

Dec 19, 2012

Petzold handles personal, formal, and political concerns in such perfect balance, it's difficult, and not especially desirable, to separate one from the next. The movie is dense but never feels it, assembled with easy mastery and engrossing throughout. Read full review

100

Manohla Dargis

Dec 20, 2012

Barbara is a film about the old Germany from one of the best directors working in the new: Christian Petzold. For more than a decade Mr. Petzold has been making his mark on the international cinema scene with smart, tense films that resemble psychological thrillers, but are distinguished by their strange story turns, moral thorns, visual beauty and filmmaking intelligence. Read full review

Ellen E. Jones

Dec 17, 2012

Not only has director Christian Petzold assembled a fascinating hill of beans, but there's a moonlit scene that almost alone justifies his Silver Bear win at Berlin. Read full review

The Guardian Peter Bradshaw

Dec 17, 2012

The weird oppression and seediness of the times is elegantly captured, and Hoss coolly conveys Barbara's highly strung desperation. Read full review

Stan Hall

Jan 31, 2013

Fans of European cinema will recognize in Barbara the calling cards of director Christian Petzold: the icy, quiet intensity of his muse, Nina Hoss; pretty but strangely unsettling shots of the windswept east German countryside; and subtle subversions of the thriller genre wherein the suspense is drawn from decisions made in mundane settings, such as the workplace. Read full review

The Playlist Christopher Bell

Dec 18, 2012

Though maybe a bit too stiff and straight-laced, Barbara is a frequently subtle, moderately interesting character study set in a grievous East Germany during the 1980s. Read full review

SEE ALL 22 REVIEWS

Write a Review

User Reviews

bobmeier

Aug 23, 2016

I enjoyed Phoenix and have read about Petzold's work. I wanted to see Barbara in the theaters but it didn't screen here. Was suprised when it showed up in a library dvd. What a great and satisfying movie-I think it's better than Phoenix.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

Bikerjames

Dec 24, 2012

Barbara was a nice surprise. Barbara, a physician, is banished to work at a hospital in the communist bloc of East Germany because she applied for an exit visa. She is watched like a hawk by authorities as someone who possibly may try to escape. In the meantime, she is plotting an escapeBarbara was a nice surprise. Barbara, a physician, is banished to work at a hospital in the communist bloc of East Germany because she applied for an exit visa. She is watched like a hawk by authorities as someone who possibly may try to escape. In the meantime, she is plotting an escape with her boyfriend who occasionally has to come to the East side of the wall for his work. The depiction of the hospital and her living quarters is so stark and realistic. She also begins to have feelings for her colleague Andre, who is apparently head of staff at the hospital. The ending is not what you would expect. The acting is great, and the cinematography is first rate. The movie is German, so there are subtitles, but it is a slow paced film and the subtitles are easy to follow and don't detract. Nina Hoss is wonderful in the title role and the film is sure to be a contender for best foreign film at Oscar time. Highly recommended.… Expand

3 of 3 users found this helpful30

ClariseSamuels

Sep 22, 2014

Barbara is a film where every breath pause has meaning, and a sideways glance is not an arbitrary gesture but a nervous, paranoid tic that is necessary in order to remain one step ahead of the Stasi, the East German secret police who make the American McCarthy era look like a Sunday picnic.Barbara is a film where every breath pause has meaning, and a sideways glance is not an arbitrary gesture but a nervous, paranoid tic that is necessary in order to remain one step ahead of the Stasi, the East German secret police who make the American McCarthy era look like a Sunday picnic. Portrayed here is a disconsolate cinematic landscape, austere, stripped bare of consumerism and bourgeois excesses. Fame and glamor have no place here; there is only the countryside and the rustic life of the villagers. There are subtle signs of the solidarity that will one day arise in reaction to a Communist government that believes the average citizen is their worst enemy. But there is also an elaborate system of citizen informants who help the Stasi by spying on each other. There is the beauty of the natural landscape, some meaning from one's work, some comfort from one's home, and the fact that no matter where humans dwell, they fall in love.

In Rilke's Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, he writes of the sounds he hears in the city streets when he longs for the country-- “Someone calls out. People are running, catch up with each other. A dog barks. What a relief.” In Barbara, the sound of a dog barking at night in the village countryside is not a relief; it is cause for alarm for it could mean that the Stasi are lurking about outside the apartment house of the chain-smoking young doctor, played by Nina Hoss in the titular role, who dared to apply for a permit to leave East Germany and immigrate to the West to join her fiance. In response, the authorities banish her from her prestigious hospital in Berlin and exile her to a small hospital in the outlying regions. She is also under surveillance, a tense situation that sometimes makes the film work as a subtle thriller, her request for an exit visa having marked her as an enemy of the State. If she disappears from sight for hours at a time, as she sometimes does to have a secret rendezvous with her Western boyfriend, she will be accosted afterward by the local Stasi officer, her apartment pulled apart in search of contraband, and a female officer wearing rubber gloves will ask her to strip down for a body search.

This is her life, a life that she abhors, and she lives only for the day that she will escape with her boyfriend's help. In the meantime, she has to take care of the patients assigned to her at the regional hospital, where a talented physician, Dr. Andre Reiser (Ronald Zehrfeld), has also been banished from Berlin after a hospital scandal involving professional negligence on his part. He is resigned to his lot, and takes pleasure in the natural beauty around him, his books, and his work. He has even managed to scrape together enough equipment so that he has his own personal laboratory at the clinic. He is strangely attracted to Barbara, despite her coldness, mistrust, and her barely hidden contempt for the fact that unlike her, he cooperates with the Stasi and submits reports about individuals as requested, including reports about Barbara herself.

A wary respect develops between the two, and Reiser begins to hope that he can win Barbara's affections. She appears to be unobtainable, detached, and horrified by his appreciation for the life that he leads and the circumstances he accepts. But then her genuine empathy for her patients begins to draw her in, and her fiance's Western world of business dealings, money, and acquisitions stand in stark contrast to a simpler, more spartan but uncontaminated world where she is desperately needed. She says nothing at a hotel tryst with her lover when he tells her that after he smuggles her out of the country, she will no longer have to work. Having started out with single-minded resolution, Barbara reaches an agonizing fork in the road.

The stark beauty of the cinematography parallels the ascetic values of the repressed, restricted, and censored society of East Germany in the 1980s. A nighttime scene on the beach under moonlight shows Barbara, usually looking as severe and grim as the society in which she is trapped, suddenly blossoming into something almost supernaturally beautiful as she reaches the point where she understands the true nature of her dilemma. Her transformation is the story of this film.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

MarcDoyle

Jan 6, 2013

What an excellent film. Several critics compare it to The Lives of Others, but they are quite different. The threat of the Stasi is much more overt and oppressive in The Lives of Others. It's certainly a threat in this film, and the room/body searches are here, but it's much more subtleWhat an excellent film. Several critics compare it to The Lives of Others, but they are quite different. The threat of the Stasi is much more overt and oppressive in The Lives of Others. It's certainly a threat in this film, and the room/body searches are here, but it's much more subtle feel. The focus on Barbara and her relationships with her boyfriend, her fellow doctor, and a troubled young girl stuck in a camp works because Nina Hoss is such an incredibly good actress. Highly recommended.… Expand

2 of 2 users found this helpful20

lasttimeisaw

May 7, 2015

A double-bill of contemporary Germany's leading director Christian Petzold’s most recent films BARBARA and PHOENIX, both are executed with the same team and stars Nina Hoss, Petzold’s longtime muse and Ronald Zehrfeld as two leads, punctiliously examine the mentality of German people in theA double-bill of contemporary Germany's leading director Christian Petzold’s most recent films BARBARA and PHOENIX, both are executed with the same team and stars Nina Hoss, Petzold’s longtime muse and Ronald Zehrfeld as two leads, punctiliously examine the mentality of German people in the post-WWII era.

In BARBARA, the locale is a rural surrounding of 1980s East Germany, Hoss is the titular Barbara, a doctor newly banished to a small hospital due to some unexplained collusion with West Germany, Barbara’s frosty bearing means she is not here to make friends, and her condition is sympathising although the hostility and vigilance between her and her colleagues is mutual, but she is also constantly under surveillance from the authority after hours, she even has to endure the humiliation of her body being manually checked each time when they launch a fine-tooth comb in her small unadorned apartment. However Barbara has her own secret, she has a West German lover Jörg (Waschke) who apparently is a rich business man and planning to rescue her from the repressive and authoritarian East Germany, Jörg even comes to visit her frequently and they engage in some uninhibited carnal knowledge.

keep reading my review on my blog, please google: cinema omnivore, thanks!… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

DawdlingPoet

Mar 26, 2022

This is a somewhat sobering film, featuring numerous patients needing treatment in the small hospital the titular character finds herself posted to. Its perhaps a little bland but it isn't entirely dull, just there isn't a whole lot going for it either, so I'm in somewhat of two minds aboutThis is a somewhat sobering film, featuring numerous patients needing treatment in the small hospital the titular character finds herself posted to. Its perhaps a little bland but it isn't entirely dull, just there isn't a whole lot going for it either, so I'm in somewhat of two minds about it. The script is ok and the characters are mildly interesting but its certainly not a gripping watch. Its somewhat thoughtful I suppose. The main character is someone I could feel sorry for and understand her concerns and longing to be elsewhere... I guess its a film about identity really, self identity. This is a domestic drama, with a slightly arty feel to it I suppose. I wouldn't go out of your way to see it but its an alright film in itself, so if it sounds of interest then it may be worth you watching it, yes.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

Lyn

Sep 21, 2014

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. The film is beautifully shot, with tension that unfolds slowly and great subtlety in the acting. I kind of hated the ending, though ... Barbara makes a decision that seems self-sacrificing on the surface, but that also seems utterly senseless when you consider its effect on the girl who is thrust into its consequences. What's going to happen to her???… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

SEE ALL 9 REVIEWS