Barbara Movie Analysis

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Christian Petzold’s Barbara, a Cold War movie, could be described as a psychological and political thriller with underground tensions and tautness. Set in 1980 in East Germany, this movie tells the story of Barbara Wolff, a doctor who was moved from the distinguished Charité Hospital to a provincial town hospital as a punishment by the Stasi for applying for an exit visa in order to leave East Germany. The film starts the day that Barbara’s life begins in that rural town where she is being constantly watched by everyone; from the Stasi officer, who frequently searches her house and even her body, and Andre, the head doctor of that hospital, who is an informant of the Stasi, to her cold-eyed neighbors. She has no friends anymore because as Klaus…show more content…
Other films convey more clear and overt messages by presenting binaries such as good and bad, and focusing heavily on the negative aspects of the East side so that the audience will position itself against it. As Manohla Dargis of the New York Times wrote, “Barbara is another type of resistance movie” since the director avoids “movie clichés” and by grasping and conveying the atmosphere of that time in a way that everything is implied and suggested. That is happening because nothing in the movie is exaggerated or idealized. The director is letting the audience use its imagination and dig deeper by not having extra and unnecessary dialogue in the movie and by conveying a lot of important elements through the expressions and posture of the…show more content…
Obviously, Barbara loves her job and it’s probably the only place where she feels free. Work for her might be a kind of freedom, if that is taken away from her, then, she would be dominated, oppressed and unhappy again even on the other side. So escaping would not mean freedom anymore. Freedom for her could mean an internal
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