The German Lesson

Deutschstunde | Christian Schwochow | Germany, 2019 | German (English subtitles) | Drama | 125m | DCP | IMDB | Distributor/Sales: Arri Media | Festival marketing sample: Zurich Film Festival 2019 | Trailer

Description: Siggi Jeppsen is a boy growing up during the war in a small village on the north German coast. His father is the local policeman who has been instructed to enforce a ban on a family friend, an expressionist painter, from painting. Siggi’s father tries to get his son to help him. Instead, Siggi rebels against his father and is eventually remanded, in the postwar period, to a juvenile delinquent institution where he has been assigned to write an essay about the ‘Joy of Duty’.

Merits: This beautifully written and filmed production features outstanding performances. Based on the novel by Siegfried Lenz.

Rating: Mild graphic violence.

Programming considerations: While the film’s exploration of the ‘German mindset’ may be of interest to Jewish film festival audiences, there is nothing explicitly ‘Jewish’ about any of the themes. There is only an oblique reference to an abandoned house whose tenants suddenly ‘disappeared’.