While most films regarding this period focus on spies, politicians, military, this one gives us a hindsight about ordinary people.

A little background info would be useful. The characters live in a city called Stalinstadt, which is on the Polish border, far from Berlin and the West German border, so in short a hard place if you want to escape. For a German public, it is obvious, but for an international audience, it lacks a litte introduction.

The best part of those German movies and series produced at Babelsberg studios (Ghost Writer, Silence, Babylon Berlin) is the aesthetics and design. The clothes, furniture, cars, every object seems to be carefully researched. I find the visual appeal sometimes better than the story itself.

About the plot, it is alright. I was surprised to see how free were East Germans before the building of the wall, since the secret police was in its early stages yet.

"Das schweigende Klassenzimmer" or "The Silent Revolution" or literally "The Silent Classroom" is a new German movie that was just released here a couple days ago and I think that these 110 minutes are the best 2018 film I have seen so far in terms of films that had their worldwide premiere in 2018. Writer and director is Lars Kraume and here he adapted the book by Dietrich Garstka for the screen. It really is an impressive outcome, good in the first half, great in the second half and nothing short of the level of quality Kraume reached with his Fritz Bauer film a while ago and the success here is maybe even more impressive as most of the cast members are relatively young actors. But it seems that Kraume just has it with films that focus on German history these days and nobody is on his level. The strength is the way in which he depicts individual characters and fates in the face of these German historic events. This film here for example is set during the early years of the GDR before the Berlin Wall is built. We see what happens when an entire class holds a minute of silence to honor those who died in hungary fighting against the Soviet oppressors. So there are many references to actual historic events in here. But still the film has many characters to offer that are interesting in their own right. Kraume worked again with the likes of Zehrfeld and Klausner for example, the latter being an absolute scene sctealer once again luckily for us in the audience. And the strength is really that there is no black-and-white in here. Even the characters you consider as antagonists, Klaußner's the best example, have their own background that somehow explains and justifies why they are the way they are (the scar at his neck). And the good characters like Zehrfeld's are not entirely good, for example they have their own roots in the GDR and don't want to leave just like that. Or the one student who tells eventually who initiated the protest. He may be a homophobe, but he is also very loyal to his father and it breaks his heart when he finds out the truth about him. There are a few moments where the film is maybe not spot-on like the rifle shooting and running around scene for the character I just mentioned and sometimes the young actors are also not hitting the right marks, but even in these moments Kraume's vision makes sure that the film is still very tense, very much worth watching and will have you on the edge of your seat. It feels very realistic, very authentic. Most of the kids would not want to sacrifice their education for a higher good or for their political beliefs and that includes the main character. Maybe the departure at the very end was not the perfect moment to close the film like there were moments previously where Kraume could have had the screen credits roll in and it would have worked better, but for every minor criticisms, there are major plus points about this film that will have you at the edge of your seats for a pretty long time. It feels very right. They include many characters and all of them get their validation. Frequently you feel that characters were just there for the sake of it and added nothing, but this is never the case here. I ruly hope this film gets the awards attention it deserves as it proves that even with these hundreds of GDR-themed films out there, it is still very possible to come up with compelling new stuff on this subject if you possess the neecssary talent like Kraume does for sure. Another thumbs-up also for this film not being shy of taking paths of unhappy (intermediate) endings like the one involving Gwisdek's character or the young man who ends up as the scape goat and is not seen during the final classroom sequence. And another thumbs-up for the political time in which it is set because what we know now about how long the GDR kept existing afterward and how horrible things turned out in terms of getting from one country to the other for decades, it adds a lot to this film below the surface. I give this film a huge thumbs-up and highly recommend checking it out. close to a must-see for German citizens. It never feels fake at all.

This is a nice and well done movie about a class that defied their teachers but more importantly, even if they didn't know it the tyranny of their goverment. It is more than decent and even if you may not always feel entirely convinced by the acting (I think it's way above average here and very good for a german cinema release to say the least),the movie has a (real life) story to tell.

You may not have been aware of this, and to be truthful neither were the pupils in this. Some things feel forced and some incidents may feel a bit over dramatized, but they work in the story that unfolds. Also the characters are really nicely drawn. There are quite a few emotional moments and quite a few were you may feel helpless too ... it really is about being involved, if you let the movie do that to you, you are in for an experience