Directed by Serbian Zivorad Mitrovic, the first wave of post-war Yugoslav filmmakers. Screenplay by Frida Filipovic and Michael Mansfeld. Yugoslavian girl - Lea Weiss (Papas) - is sent to Auschwitz. Inside the camp there is a brothel reserved for high-ranking thieves and bandits, and she prostitutes herself there for small perks. Beautiful and young, she is taken by a Gestapo doctor - Dr. Berger (Hans Zesch-Ballot) - who experiments with sterilization in the prisoners. She becomes a victim of the experience and soon after the general's lover. This way she's able to escape experiences involving the freezing of people and other monstrosities. When he gets tired of the girl, the doctor sends her back to the brothel, where she stays until the end of the war. Years later, she tells part of her story to a boyfriend - Bora Petrovic (Daniel Gélin) - who releases the memoirs in a book.
Then she marries a French reporter who dies covering the Indochina war. She decides to settle in Germany, where she receives small financial compensation for her sufferings during the war, and is unaware of the fact that her benefactors are the sister of a SS general - Elsa (Radmila Gutesa) - and the legal adviser - Walden Werner Peters) - of the doctor who raped her in Auschwitz.
After twenty years, a promoter - Hoffmann (Heinz Drache) - begins to gather evidence to arrest Berger, who is free and happy. He tracks Lea down, but she refuses to help and denies everything published in Bora's book. Hoffmann goes to Belgrade and asks Bora to go with him to Germany to persuade Lea to testify. He accepts and they both discover that Lea is being blackmailed and threatened not to testify. Gradually she opens up and tells even more terrible details of her hell in the concentration camp. And with that the threats increase and start to break Lea's fragile emotional and mental stability.
The movie has low artistic quality. I'm not familiar with Mitrovic's other movies, but Gorke Trave looks like a college grad's work. Direction is below amateur. The story has its relevance and could have resulted in a very interesting film, specially for bringing little known stories from post-war Yugoslavia, but the dialogues are so idiotic they do not steer any emotion. Dialogues are shallow and dumb. I have rarely seen situations of such dramaticity being talked about in such a stupid and artificial way. Daniel Gélin and Heinz Drache range from average to mediocre.
The only thing that saves this movie from oblivion is the cathartic presence of the insanely gorgeous Irene Papas. For some reason she did not become an A list actress in the States after the success of Zorba The Greek, and in the following years she made several films in Europe. Some good, others ok and others like this one. We can almost forgive Mitrovic, because at least we can see Papas in all the splendor of her beauty. Papas is perfect. Everything about her is wonderful. It's a shame the movie is so bad because in the hands of a real filmmaker (like Costa Gavras), Papas - who was not only stunning but a great actress - would have given a powerful, frightening and moving performance. It's not what happens, but at least the divine beauty of her at 39 is eternalized.
Then she marries a French reporter who dies covering the Indochina war. She decides to settle in Germany, where she receives small financial compensation for her sufferings during the war, and is unaware of the fact that her benefactors are the sister of a SS general - Elsa (Radmila Gutesa) - and the legal adviser - Walden Werner Peters) - of the doctor who raped her in Auschwitz.
After twenty years, a promoter - Hoffmann (Heinz Drache) - begins to gather evidence to arrest Berger, who is free and happy. He tracks Lea down, but she refuses to help and denies everything published in Bora's book. Hoffmann goes to Belgrade and asks Bora to go with him to Germany to persuade Lea to testify. He accepts and they both discover that Lea is being blackmailed and threatened not to testify. Gradually she opens up and tells even more terrible details of her hell in the concentration camp. And with that the threats increase and start to break Lea's fragile emotional and mental stability.
The movie has low artistic quality. I'm not familiar with Mitrovic's other movies, but Gorke Trave looks like a college grad's work. Direction is below amateur. The story has its relevance and could have resulted in a very interesting film, specially for bringing little known stories from post-war Yugoslavia, but the dialogues are so idiotic they do not steer any emotion. Dialogues are shallow and dumb. I have rarely seen situations of such dramaticity being talked about in such a stupid and artificial way. Daniel Gélin and Heinz Drache range from average to mediocre.
The only thing that saves this movie from oblivion is the cathartic presence of the insanely gorgeous Irene Papas. For some reason she did not become an A list actress in the States after the success of Zorba The Greek, and in the following years she made several films in Europe. Some good, others ok and others like this one. We can almost forgive Mitrovic, because at least we can see Papas in all the splendor of her beauty. Papas is perfect. Everything about her is wonderful. It's a shame the movie is so bad because in the hands of a real filmmaker (like Costa Gavras), Papas - who was not only stunning but a great actress - would have given a powerful, frightening and moving performance. It's not what happens, but at least the divine beauty of her at 39 is eternalized.
