Glimmerubro It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Justina The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Chunyi Hsu I have not seen a better film portraying civilian women in WWII. The daily sturggle between reality, morality and idealogy. Men on the other side pour their rage and revenge upon them. Men on their side cannot understand what they have undergone and cannot forgive what they have done. The women of Berlin had no one but themselves. Some chose to fight and die, and some, like the protagonist, chose to survive and kept her hope for the eventual reunion with her husband. As she described, Russian men appreciated well-educated women, while German men were the opposite. The supposed savage and animal whom she chose as protector turned out to be something quite different, and he gave everything to save her, even wanted to take her with him after the war. This reality clashed with the long and endless waiting of her husband. The 30-minute promise was long overdue and she had to make a choice. Yet again, fate chose for her. The commander was taken away by NKVD for what he did to save her, and the returning husband was not the person she was waiting for anymore- bitter, broken, and alienated.The woman at first was terrified and angered by the barbaric behaviours of the Red Army. As time passes, she began to understand their pain and realised the Germans also committed horrific atrocities against civilians. Her blind patriotism was unsettled by the accounts of the enemy, the feeling of betrayal by her own government, and worst of all, her own fellow German men, who left them defenseless. This was the beginning of post-war Germany- the rise of sexual equality and limited government authority.

jessicacoco2005 Pure, boring ahistorical Euro-trash. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the victory of Western Capitalism, the West is rewriting history. All films are propaganda. Film costs millions to make. Bankers/Financiers are not going to finance films where they teach working class people their own history. Period. The film doesn't work on a historical level nor as an artistic cinematic endeavor.From the point of view of history: Many family members & neighbors lived in Nazi Germany. This story is purely fictional. Were there any Russian soldiers who raped German women? Of course. American soldiers who raped German women? Of course. In fact, some women are being raped as we speak whether on the streets of New York City, Rome, or China. The relevant question to ask was whether the Soviet government ever encouraged or legalized rape during WW2? The answer is: Absolutely, not! Let's look at the time period: World War 2 was coming to an end and all of Eastern Europe went socialist. France, Italy, Germany, and Greece were also going to go socialist. The Finance Bankers of the US and Great Britain wanted to stop this from happening. Thus the Marshall Plan was created. It was a battle between the East and West for the hearts and minds of not only the East Germans, but the Central Europeans. If Russian soldiers were raping millions of East German women as this film falsely show, why did East Germany become socialist and remain socialist for over 40 years? Why are East Germans; particularly East German women protesting by the hundreds of thousands to restore socialism there? From the prospective of artistic endeavor: Because a film may have been created as a piece of propaganda doesn't mean the production values need to be low are unwatchable. Regardless of how I feel about Nazi Germany, many of their film productions like Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will were masterpieces of their time that still resonant to today's audience. Lousy direction, abysmal acting, horrible cinematography, and poor script make this film unwatchable. The cinematography is shot in an almost gray pallor. Why? I don't know. Was the world black and white before 1960? The script and dialogue is silly and vulgar beyond belief. I'm ashamed and my German Protestant Family would have been even more ashamed. To give just one of several examples: An old lady willingly raped repeatedly by Russian soldiers comments how Russian men love having sex with her because as she depicts with her hand her vagina is small like a pea; unlike Ukrainian women who have vaginas the size of grapefruits. First, why would any young soldier, let alone many, want to rape ugly, old women old enough to be their grandmother? It's ridiculous! More over the overt racism against Ukrainian women is offensive and the dialogue just plain smut. Women didn't speak like this when I was a young woman in NYC in the 1990's and they for sure didn't speak this way in sexually repressed post-war Germany.One last thing before I end my review: A relevant question to ask is why certain films are financed and not others? This was a film destined to flop at the box office, so why would Bankers finance bombs ? Simple: This was the period when Austerity began and workers throughout Europe were having their worker rights' destroyed, pensions decimated, and so on. The film's purpose is to make people doubt the possibility that a better alternative is possible, so people continue to accept the tyranny of the Robber-Baron, Finance Capitalists 1%. By demonizing the Soviet Union, the 1% is trying to indoctrinate into the population that all alternatives are worse. 1 Star-Rotten. Pure trash, if it would have been created to be trashy Euro-porn, it would have been less trashy.

Luddwigg Being of German blood and having a mother who actually lived through the experience of living in Berlin as the Russian armies marched in, I was looking forward to a film that mirrored the experiences that she lived through. She joined to watch and disappeared about half an hour into the movie. Germans at the time thought of Russians as brutal subhumans and that was part of the justification for conquering & enslaving them so that the more deserving master race could take over their lands. Looks like some still have that attitude. My mother does not, nor do most of her friends who also experienced the war from various parts of Berlin and Germany. Sure rapes did happen, but not to the extent that this movie portrays where every day consisted endless Russian abuses. My mother was not raped once, nor any of her friends. The Russian soldiers were human - some good, some bad - no different than any other human beings. She tells the story of an extremely drunk Russian soldier invading the basement they were hiding in as their first contact. Yes he did drag a woman off into the corner, no doubt a terrifying experience. But then before he could do any damage he fell asleep & started snoring.

kateericolsen While this isn't a terrible movie, it is a disappointment for those who read the book. It creates a completely different reality from that presented in the book. The author would be disgusted with the character they created from her diary. How disappointing, since the character in the book is so fascinating and complex. Ignore the historical revisionist reviews in these pages. Here's a summary of what to expect in this movie.As a movie: It's an interesting plot with characters that are only partially developed. What dominates is the setting--Berlin in Spring of 1945. The intrigue of the movie is the setting, the war, the meeting of the different peoples (Germans and Russians). It's worth watching for that.As history: It does present a story that needs to be told--the rape of the German women by the Russians. Rape is prevalent in war, all nations were guilty of rape on the part of their men, but what the Russians did to the German women is beyond compare. There are a lot of reasons for that, but you won't discover those in the movie. You'll need to read the book for that.As a movie based on a book: What a great disappointment. The richness of the book is the perspective given by this author, her insights into war and people, and her writing. Very nicely done. The movie, on the other hand, focuses only on the action. A very complex diary is distilled down to some very basic themes in the movie (war is bad, people do bad things in war, love crosses boundaries). Spoiler Alert: The keeper of this diary is portrayed as falling for her Russian friend. That is not the case in the book. She is simply trying to survive a situation the men of Germany and Russia placed her in. The true drama in the book revolves around the choices she must make to survive. Also, the movie character addresses her diary to her fiancée, Gerd. Not so in the book. She is her own person, and not the woman waiting for her man.Bottom line: read the book, but watch the movie if you can't read it--just keep in mind that this is not the real story.