94% Barbara

All Critics (63) | Top Critics (19) | Fresh (59) | Rotten (4)

The movie examines the possibility of maintaining one's humanity in a truly oppressive society.

Hoss, wearing her blond hair pulled back tight, and wearing an expression of inscrutable melancholy, gives a performance that doesn't feel like a performance at all.

The occasional ravings of the patients, ringing off the walls in Petzold's measured quiet, provide an appropriate backdrop to the heroine's need for freedom, yet the movie's politics never trump its humanity.

This is well-trod ground for Petzold, but never has it been so fully realized, so palpable, as in "Barbara."

Hoss is fantastic. Barbara is ice cold at the start, understandably so. Yet Hoss makes her sympathetic.

[Leaves] you drained and horrified.

That sense of nervous dislocation that the viewer feels in the first few scenes - Where am I? Who is this person? Is she friend or foe? - efficently evokes the muted terror that its characters feel.

Petzold renders Communist oppression in a provocatively muted manner.

Stories of characters like Barbara continue to have meaning, even in a "free" society.

Engrossing Cold War thriller and love story set in East Germany in 1980.

In short, the failures in storytelling detract from the film, despite its sensitivities, its subtleties and its final payoff of personal sacrifice.

A meticulously crafted drama in which the depiction of character, place and circumstance evolves slowly and with intrigue, Barbara is gripping cinema

This well acted political melodrama, set during the Cold War, is Germany's entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar.

Hoss' outstanding performance is a deep well of subtle yet unmistakable motives and reactions.

A crafty filmmaker, Petzold gives us information in increments. During the first half of his movie, which he co-wrote, we are all but left to our own devices; yet it is fascinating, and appropriate.

Worth seeing ... both for Petzold's singular aesthetic and for Hoss, who as usual is a riveting presence.

A well-observed, compelling, and evocative character piece, haunted by the ghosts of Germany's recent past.

Feels like total immersion into the sights, stresses, and the subtle solidarity among middle-class professionals living in the workers' paradise that Petzold's parents fled.

[R]esides somewhere in an unsatisfying borderland between drama and thriller, never quite catching fire as either...

A superbly crafted low-boil drama that gets its hooks into you the old-fashioned way, through character, and highlights the difficulties and cost of living by principles.

Subtly intriguing and ambiguous, it's filled with suspicion and subterfuge.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/barbara_2012/

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