What's a girl to do when she is surrounded by women in a female boarding school? She falls in love with her female teacher who shares some mutual feelings. This film is not so much about lesbianism as it is about Germany was striving to become so disciplined and unfeeling towards one another. Of course, lesbianism was bound to happen. There were no other options. You have a girl who wants to be loved and love just seems unthinkable in the German culture of the Nazi uprising. Even though this film was made in 1931, the girls' uniforms reminded me of the concentration camps uniforms. The school was trying to discourage close relationships between girls and among teachers and students. I don't think of it much as a lesbian film as a chilling portrait of how Germany was bounded for destruction during World War II. Maybe the film points as a good reminder of how relationships should be encouraged and feelings are human. This school was trying to restrict the girls' humanity into an almost robotlike existence. That's how I always saw this film. I never thought of it as a lesbian film because the girls in the school had no other choice or option. They weren't allowed freedom and that's what the major theme of this movie is. Germany was beginning to restrict it's freedom on their citizens and forcing them to become less human in order to succeed but that's just my opinion.

This is a highly unusual film from just before the Nazi era. It's about a Prussian-style girls school and the difficulty a new arrival has at fitting in to the stupidly strict system (i.e., rules just for the sake of having rules). This difficulty is remediated, somewhat, by a kind housemother. In this relationship, there are strong hints of lesbianism, though considering this is the early 1930s, a modern viewer may find the treatment of this taboo a little vague and silly--though not nearly as silly as the excised gay scene from Spartacus. For this reason alone, it is a very curious movie. I actually would have found it perhaps more interesting if they had either allowed this relationship to evolve more or if they had helped the young infatuated girl to understand how these feelings are, perhaps, related to her loss of her mother and her own pubescence (another parallel issue in the movie). Oh well. This isn't really a complaint, just curiosity.

Late in the movie there is a dandy climax (cinematic, not sexual). The young girl is pushed and pushed unmercifully by the draconian headmistress until she attempts suicide. I liked this touch, but wonder how the story might have been different if either the girl HAD actually died. Also, after she is saved, the movie ends with the headmistress visibly shaken--but ends there. I wanted to see what would happen next in the mind of the movie's writers and director.

Oh well, enough of my ranting. It's a good, though not great movie with themes that make it either an adult film or at least one you should think twice before letting your teens see it alone (maybe see it with them and discuss the images instead).

"Mädchen in Uniform" or "Girls in Uniform" is a German film from 85 years ago that is in black-and-white and runs for slightly over 80 minutes. The main character here is a girl with lesbian tendencies and it was obviously the filmmakers' intention that we like here, so you can imagine how the Nazis, who came into power 2 years later, saw this film. It was banned and tried to eradicate from existence. Luckily there were not successful and copies of it still exist today. Another reason why they hated it was certainly the anti-authoritarian plot here with all the actresses playing students and staff at an all-girls school. And the main antagonist was the old Oberin, the head of the institute, with her strict rules and regulations. Not only one of the film's director is female (Leontine Sagan),but the entire cast here is. No males included.

I thought it took a while till the film really became good, but the longer it goes, the better it becomes. I would not call it a mus-see, but it certainly has its moments and a pretty dramatic final sequence too. the last show with the head mistress leaving is also quite good. Today, none of the actresses in here are really famous, but the film still is, probably more famous than the remake starring Romy Schneider from the 1950s. I think both films are good and I recommend checking them out. Thumbs up for "Mädchen in Uniform".