Forbidden (1984 film)
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| Forbidden | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Anthony Page |
| Produced by | Hans Brockman Mark Forstater Gerald I. Isenberg Ingrid Windisch |
| Written by | Michael Hastings Leonard Gross (non-fiction) |
| Narrated by | Jacqueline Bisset |
| Starring | Jacqueline Bisset Jurgen Prochnow Irene Worth |
| Music by | Tangerine Dream |
| Cinematography | Wolfgang Treu |
| Editing by | Thomas Schwalm |
| Distributed by | Anthea Films |
| Release date(s) | December 1984 (UK) March 1985 (US) |
| Running time | 114 min. (USA) 157 min (Canada) |
| Country | UK / West Germany |
| Language | English |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Forbidden is a 1984 made-for-television film tells the tale of a wealthy German countess who hid her Jewish boyfriend in her apartment in World War II. Jacqueline Bisset portrayed the Countess and Jurgen Prochnow starred as her lover. The plot is loosely based on a true story originally told in the non-fiction book The Last Jews In Berlin by Leonard Gross.
[edit] Plot
German countess Nina von Hadler (Bisset) is a student in veterinary medicine in Berlin, Germany on the eve of World War II. Ostracized by her family due to her liberal views and anti-Hitler sentiment, she lives alone, independent and strong-willed. The film opens with Nina studying at the library the day Germany invades Czecheslovakia. She is angered and tells a classmate she knows the reasons Hitler gave for the invasion (to allegedly rescue ethnic Germans) are a pack of lies.
One day while on errands Nina witnesses Brownshirts attacking a vendor and throwing him to the ground. She also sees a man attempting to help the vendor. She confronts them and demands to know why he is being attacked. They say they beat him because he sells to Jews. She tells him to leave the man alone or she will report them to her brother-in-law, a high-ranking Nazi official. Later, while attending an informal party hosted by her friend, she recognizes the man who came to the assistance of the vendor. Her friend, Erica, tells her that his name is Fritz Friedlander at a party held by a good friend in the city of Berlin. She sees Fritz and is immediately attracted to him, but Erica warns Nina that because Fritz is Jewish, it would be illegal to date him because of the Nuremberg Laws. The headstrong Nina ignores this advice and pursues Fritz who is a writer. Despite the discrimination he and his mother are experiencing, he feels the Nazis are just a bunch of bullies who will soon be gone.
They must meet at one of her summer homes to escape discovery. Fritz's mother Ruth (Worth) is vehemently opposed to their relationship, as she fears for her son's life. Fritz is arrested and sent to a concentration camp to do forced labor, but is released. He goes straight to Nina. The Nazis are starting their round-up of Jews, Nina suggests that Fritz go into hiding - in her flat. She leaves him there during the day, where he must not make any noise. If someone comes in while he's there, he must go and hide underneath the sofa, which has a compartment expressly designed by Nina for such a situation. She offers to hide Ruth as well, but she is so terrified of being caught that she refuses. So Fritz writes a fake suicide note that his mother takes to Gestapo headquarters.
Later, Nina takes in another Jewish man named Max. She feels that in addition to saving him, she can provide a companion for Fritz. Things are going well until one day, Nina comes home from school to find Fritz and Max singing Jewish songs at the top of their lungs. Max is forced to find another hiding place. All the while, Nina must deal with her overtly curious neighbor and cleaning lady, Frau Schmidt.
Nina discovers that she is pregnant. Unable to claim Fritz as a father, she asks a Swedish friend, rumored to be gay, to register as the baby's father, as this will make him look heterosexual and thus avoid Nazi persecution. Nina then finds out that Ruth has been called-up by the Nazis. Because her husband was a judge and served in World War I, she will be sent to the "privileged" camp Theresienstadt. When Fritz and Nina come to say goodbye, Ruth realizes that Nina is pregnant, she insists that no matter what happens, they must survive for their unborn child.
The arrests of Berlin's Jewish population escalates, as do air attacks from the Allies. Nina goes into premature labor and is rushed to the hospital. The baby is born; he is very small. The nurses put him in an incubator. But the hospital's generator is hit by a bomb, causing a loss of power. Unable to breathe, the baby dies. Heartbroken, Fritz sneaks out of his hiding place to see Nina and his dead son's casket.
Unbeknownst to Fritz, Nina is working in the Resistance, still aiding Jews and other people hiding from the Nazis. One night, she is discovered attempting to hids some Jews in a warehouse and is shot. The bullet only grazes her face, and she manages to escape, but the incident has shaken her. When Fritz asks what happened, she tells him she got kicked by a horse while at veterinary school.
Suffering from cabin fever, Fritz sneaks out on a warm spring day and goes to his old neighborhood. While sitting on a park bench, he is joined by a mysterious gentleman who engages Fritz in conversation. The man tells Fritz that he is a Jew-catcher, a Jewish person hired by the Nazis to find other Jews who are evading capture. When the man asks Fritz if he realized that he was sitting in what used to be a Jewish neighborhood, Fritz claims ignorance and says his goodbyes. The man starts to follow him and Fritz begins to run, with the man in hot pursuit. He barely escapes.
When he returns home, he finds Nina desperately waiting for him. He tells her what happened. She has worse news for him; the Resistance has discovered that the Nazis are taking the Jews to death camps in Poland and gassing them. She still believes his mother is still safe in Theresienstadt. She then tells him about a train going to Switzerland. She and her friends are smuggling several Jews onboard. She professes her love for him, but wants him to go where he will be safe. That night, they go to the train depot, where he and other refugees are placed in boxes with a small supply of food and water. As she leaves, she sees Fritz running up to her; he loves her so that he's unable to leave her. Together they return home.
By the winter of 1944-45, Berlin is in ruins and it is clear that Germany is losing the war. Nina's flat has been badly damaged by bombs, but is still habitable. She finds a little girl who has lost her family in a bombing raid. Her name is Lucie and Nina takes her to live with them. She tells Lucie that Fritz is their "secret friend" and she must never tell anyone about him. Things are fine until one day several Nazis appear at her home and accuse her of hiding Jews in her apartment. They search the place, finding no one. The head Nazi asks her about her couch and what is in it. Nina says it hasn't been opened in years, so she doesn't know. The officer then shoots it several times, destroying the lock. Leaving her with a stern warning, they depart. They opened the couch - and Fritz is not there!! He comes out of a broom closet, where he has been hiding all the time.
Germany is then invaded by the Russians. Nina knew that the Russians wanted revenge for the millions of countrymen murdered by the Third Reich. Attempting to hide in the cellar, they are caught by the Russians and forced outside. Nina yells to the soldiers that Fritz is Jewish, but they ignore her. Once outside, Fritz is forced to kneel as the Russians prepare to shoot him. He starts singing "Shalom Israel" at the top of his lungs. The Russian soldier about to kill him lowers his gun and says that he is Jewish too. The war is over for Fritz and Nina. During the voice-over while the camera pans over a bombed-out and devastated Berlin, Nina tells the audience that Ruth Friedlander was transferred from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz, where she was gassed. Eventually she and Fritz married with Fritz dying in 1973 and Nina surviving long enough to tell the story.
