Anyway, about a week ago, I watched 'The Nasty Girl' by Michael Verhoeven, which I borrowed from the school library.
The story follows beloved Sonja Rosenberger, played by Lena Stolze, but is based on a true story about a woman named Anna Rosmus. As a young girl, from a town in Bavaria, Sonja enters an essay competition for all of West Germany, and then when she wins this, she enters another, this time researching her town during the third reich and its resistance to it, which in fact turns out not to be true. She researches, but is met by resistance from the town, and is targeted, in order to have her silenced. It's only those very close to her who support her work and urge her on....
Through a unique style, Verhoeven takes a sensitive topic, the feelings of Germans as to their participation in WWII, and makes it into a strangely good film. Lena Stolze is glorious as Sonja, retaining her youthful charm and appeal throughout the film, from infancy to adulthood and she accidentally drifts into the role of advocate for the truth at any price. Her apparent youthful innocence is what gives the movie much of its staying power in the minds of its viewers. One really cool/unusual scene is how the walls are taken down of Sonja's living room and it floats through town while people anonymously call and threaten her family.
This movie is comedy, tragedy, documentary, and social commentary rolled into one glorious package and at the beginning I didn't know what to think, and thought the film would be very bad, but I was definitely proved wrong. On another note, this film is also a very good portrayal about a modern woman's struggle to be independent in her work while having a large family, as shown by Sonja's research and balancing her university studies with a very young family. I definitely recommend this film.
