JOHANNES HEGEMANN, LIV LISA FRIESANDREAS DRESEN: FROM HILDE, WITH LOVE/IN LIEBE, EURE HILDE (2024) - BERLIN & BEYOND, SAN FRANCISCOTRAILERAn unselfconscious, double-layered portrait of Hilde Coppi, resistance fighter From 2017 German actress Liv Lisa Fries (born 1990) gained an international following playing the female lead Charlotte Ritter in the German TV series "Babylon Berlin," which ran till 2025. In this feature film she returns in the role of Hilde Coppi, unintended martyr and saint of the Nazi resistnce network known collectively as the the "Rote Kapelle" or Red Orchestra, Communist and Russian sympathizing individuals from various backgrounds who engaged in acts of resistance, including distributing anti-Nazi materials, aiding Jews and dissidents, and transmitting intelligence to the Allies, ultimately leading to their arrests and executions by the Nazis. Hilde became involved because her boyfriend, then husband, was.
Hilde took part in leaflet campaigns and helped with attempts to transmit Wehrmacht plans to the Soviet Union using a radio. In 1942, she and other members were arrested and eventually sentenced to death. Hilde gave birth to her son during her time in prison. Hans Coppi junior, now 81, later researched the “Red Orchestra” as a historian and we hear from him in person at ther end of this film. He played himself in another film, Stefan Roloff's
Die Rote Kapelle ("The Red Orchestra) in 2003. But this material was unfamiliar to me and may be so to most American viewers.
Everyone acknowledges that the new film is notable for the quiet conviction and power of LIv Lisa Fries as Hilde Coppi, but Johannes Hegemann as Hans is also charismatic and sexy: this film is about a romance bound up with politics caught in the spokes of the Nazi war machine. The film constantly intercuts two stories: the one of Hilde's eventual arrest, trial, and execution, and the earlier one of the love of Hilde and Hans, and the surprisingly joyful activities of the Red Orchestra , posting signage, working with short wave radios, learning Morse Code.
The wit of the film is to make Hans' teaching Hilde Morse Code into a love dance. THe beauty of
From HIlde, With Love is the simiplicity, freshness, and directness. You feel you are dropped into forties Germany with no self-consciousness or reservations. The heart of it is Hilde, who as Lee Marshall's
Screen Daily review says is "both shy and strong, unsure of herself but dependable; often in a back seat but able to take charge when necessary." You feel confidence in her, knowing that even if she cannot win she will lose nobly and honorably. It's a quietly stunnning portrait, and one worth painting.
This is a surprisingly sensuous, passionate film. The grimness of the present moment when Hilde is a prisoner is sweetened with the intercut story of Hilde and Hans' love.
There's a kiss that first she rejects, and starts to leave. Then she turns back to Hans and kisses him. Ffirst they take their glasses off. Then they take their shirts off. Then they get excited. Eventually they're down on the floor making love. Andreas Dresen has breathed new life into history.
As grim as is the present moment, the more halcyon seem the blissful times the dissidents and the lovers lived. The film captures the excitement of the Red Orchestra group so freshly, it feels like something more modern, say the Brigate RoSse or Red Brigades of 1970's Italy. And the need to dissent and resist is as alive in our own times: more than one German review of
From Hilde, with Love ends by sying it is a "playbook for today."
The final section of the film is Hilde's last time in prison, her session with the priest, her sentencing and her execution by guillotine, which we also see, with a large group of other women whom she bravely helps sustain, enobling her own final moments. Shortly before her death, the sun shines on Hilde Coppi once again. She stands with the dozen other women in the courtyard of the Berlin-Plötzensee prison and awaits her execution. We follow in real time as one after the other is called up until it is finally Hilde's turn. The scene exemplifies the calm and touching intensity with which
In LIebe, Eure Hilde is told.
Central to the prison story is Hilde's pregnancy and childbirh, her struggle and success to breastfeed little Hans Jr., and the prison employees' surprising kindness. She is out of the cell and in a hospital ward for a considerable time. One guard makes out a testimonial in Hilde's defense, and asks why she doesn't try harder to be pardoned. This is another virtue of the film: that it avoids stereotiypes.
A German review by
Bettina Peuleck, noting the "Phenomenal performance by Liv Lisa Fries, comments that "
In Liebe, Eure Hild is a quiet film, without lurid espionage action, without depictions of violence, without dramatic exaggerations. With a leading actress who has already immersed herself in the world of Nazi-era Berlin several times through her role in “Babylon Berlin,” and who now embodies the taciturn Hilde Coppi phenomenally: Liv Lisa Fries."
Yes, Fries is the standout. But this is also in itself a film that has a fresh take on a period that has been depicted so many times, yet can still be seen in a new light. Fascinating, memorable film. It's surprising that though it was a nominee for the Golden Bear for best film at ehe 1014 Berlinale, it hasn't won any awards.
Catherine Bray points out in her
Variety review that this film has a light "aesthetic" approach to the period, in doing so achiving more than usual relatability. The figures early on look period-right, but also are almost like us. The resisteance is very casual and loose, and the film shows that "Only one of the messages they risked everything to transmit to Moscow ever made it through. It simply said, 'We wish our friends the very best.' Another message they were overjoyed to receive was 'Thank you, Ber;ln.'" Bray says: "Was it worth all those lives? The film reads as a memorial to the group’s courage rather than their achievements, suggesting that it’s possible for legacy to lie in the attempt, rather than the outcome." Perhaps a certain detachment in depicting their 'heroism' is owing to director Diesen's growning up in East Germany.
In Liebe, Eure Hilde/Freom Hilde, with Love 125 mins., debuted in the Berinale Feb. 17, 2024. Also shown at the Paris German film festival, Tailinn Black Nights, Camerimage, Palm Springs, Glasgow, and Kosmorama Trondheim. Screened for this review as part of Berlin & Beyond, San Francisco.
Showtime:
Roxie, Mar. 27, 2025 at 8:45pm. FESTIVAL WEBSITE
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