Rose (2012)

Really Surprised!

Expected more

A Disappointing Continuation

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

more terrible than many battle story. because it represents only a honest testimony about the way to see the other. because it is one of the so many hate story who defines each period. because it is only a story about a woman and a man and the end of a war in a region who has its rules and fears and frustrations and definition of justice. and this does Rose different. because it is not exactly a case or slice of past or example of vulnerability of a single woman. but picture of a profound side of present. and this is its basic virtue - to be a story about people. not about heroic acts, not about the manner to survive. only one of the not important stories who preserve the roots of the lines from the history books.

'Rόża', a big-budget Polish production, is set just after the Second World War, as the German community in Poland face reprisals from the Communists. The couple sitting next to me in the cinema were whispering to each other throughout, which was tiresome - almost as tiresome as the film's multiple rape scenes. Many German women did indeed suffer sexual violence at the hands of the Red Army, but I really don't think it was necessary to show it quite so often - even if most of the scenes were extremely quick and none of them were titillating. It spoiled what was otherwise a good human-interest drama. To show one such scene, to establish what the characters were suffering, would have been acceptable - to show multiple such scenes veered, albeit unintentionally, too far into voyeurism, IMHO.

cold, harsh, bitter. only testimony. reflection of a time. or only picture of an ordinary story. a woman. a man. end of a war. beginning of other. a farm. and mixture between fear, hope and drops of joy. more than a film, it is a travel in the heart of reality. emotions, tension, and gray nuances. nothing else. only a slice from East. and a different lesson of history. because all is testimony. with perfect instruments, with desire to not forgive, to present not exactly an individual tragedy but sufferance of a land who can be Masuria, Bukovina, Kosovo or Alsace.a woman, a man, a love story out of declaration and a war traces. like remember. like profound, silent cry. or only, like a testimony. from a past who is seed for future.

If you are looking for an action movie look somewhere else. This is not the movie for you.This is a very dark, life like story of hardship that pulls no punches.It starts just after the end of WWII in 1945 and is a drama about Poles living in Masuria, an area of land the mostly comprises lakes and forests in East Prussia, which was part of Germany.When the Russians took over the area after it had been liberated, they trusted no one and regarded the locals as Germans and treated them as such.From the Russian's point of view, most Poles had collaborated with the Germans or mem­bers of the Polish Home Army (The Polish Home Army had tried to establish an independent Polish state).The movie revolves around Rose, a Polish woman who was married to a German soldier. After he was killed during the the war, she is left alone on their farm to fend for herself. She like most single woman had no defense against Russian soldiers who raped the women as a form of revenge.She also had no defense against her Polish neighbors and countrymen who robbed and stole to stay alive when they had no other way of surviving.Rose's saviour arrives in the form of Tadeusz, a former officer in the Polish Home Army who has survived the war and is attempting to hide his identity. He helps Rose to clear her fields of mines and start growing potatoes again, but Rose falls ill due to the many rapes that she has endured and dies.Unfortunately one of Tadeusz's corrupt comrades who has fallen in with the Russians betrays his identity and he taken away and tortured.A very realistic movie that can be enjoyed if you are prepared for the no holds barred realism that must have been after WWII.