Is the subject exhausted or inexhaustible? It doesn't matter, because there will always be made new films on it anyway, as new stories of experience never cease to turn up. The matter is both exhausted to a point of being overrun to over-exertion, while at the same time it remains hopelessly inexhaustible.
The main thing to observe here is the character of the film, as the main character is a poet, a German general's son, who not only has great doubts about the war but who downright hates it, and who finds some poetry in a situation at the beginning of the war when the Germans find themselves struggling with partisans close to the Russian frontier, where ha finds a Jewish girl with whom he falls in love which happens to be mutual, and they make love for real in the middle of the war. Not until after their passion spent they learn who they are, she being the daughter of a Jewish rabbi and he being the son of a German general.
The interesting thing is the many personal conflicts which result from their finding each other, leading to the phenomenon that the personal conflicts appear to grow greater than the war conflict. He is posted in the forest area of the frontier to spy out the partisans and find out their number and strategy, which is a very dangerous mission, being a German soldier and having to pose as a Polish partisan himself. She finds herself in a similar necessitated double role play, really loving her German soldier but at the same time already being betrothed to a Jewish fellow Bernard, who really loves her. They have a difficult time surviving in constantly having to get through German lines, the necessity of survival even compelling her to act as a show girl in a cabaret for the Germans, and this is just the beginning of all the intrigues, gradually amounting to an overwhelming tragedy with many casualties. Roy Scheider makes a brief appearance as a rabbi marrying her and Bernard, accentuating the Jewish part of the drama; and thus the many and complicated human ingredients serve to elevate this drama far beyond being just a war film. The poet's mother plays a significant part also, taking the part of her son against his father the general, accepting his Jewish love without hesitation. Poetry and humanity transcending the cruelties and inhumanities of war - this film could be viewed as a parallel story to Polanski's "The Pianist",l while at the same time there is some Douglas Sirk mood over the whole thing.
The main thing to observe here is the character of the film, as the main character is a poet, a German general's son, who not only has great doubts about the war but who downright hates it, and who finds some poetry in a situation at the beginning of the war when the Germans find themselves struggling with partisans close to the Russian frontier, where ha finds a Jewish girl with whom he falls in love which happens to be mutual, and they make love for real in the middle of the war. Not until after their passion spent they learn who they are, she being the daughter of a Jewish rabbi and he being the son of a German general.
The interesting thing is the many personal conflicts which result from their finding each other, leading to the phenomenon that the personal conflicts appear to grow greater than the war conflict. He is posted in the forest area of the frontier to spy out the partisans and find out their number and strategy, which is a very dangerous mission, being a German soldier and having to pose as a Polish partisan himself. She finds herself in a similar necessitated double role play, really loving her German soldier but at the same time already being betrothed to a Jewish fellow Bernard, who really loves her. They have a difficult time surviving in constantly having to get through German lines, the necessity of survival even compelling her to act as a show girl in a cabaret for the Germans, and this is just the beginning of all the intrigues, gradually amounting to an overwhelming tragedy with many casualties. Roy Scheider makes a brief appearance as a rabbi marrying her and Bernard, accentuating the Jewish part of the drama; and thus the many and complicated human ingredients serve to elevate this drama far beyond being just a war film. The poet's mother plays a significant part also, taking the part of her son against his father the general, accepting his Jewish love without hesitation. Poetry and humanity transcending the cruelties and inhumanities of war - this film could be viewed as a parallel story to Polanski's "The Pianist",l while at the same time there is some Douglas Sirk mood over the whole thing.