Coming-of-age in East Germany, 1956, in surprising, wrenching ways: Lars Kraume's marvelous THE SILENT REVOLUTION

Ah, kids, and the things they can up to! What those of THE SILENT REVOLUTION get up to during their final year of high school in East Germany back in 1956 begins as something of a lark, as well as a genuine and sympathetic feeling for those young people active in the protests taking place in Communist-controlled Hungary. The Berlin Wall hadn't even been built back then, so access between East and West Berlin was easier than it would be a few years hence.

What a couple of students see during the newsreel portion of the screening they have snuck into in a West Berlin movie house -- footage of the Hungarian Revolution they would never be allowed to view in their home country of East Berlin, now controlled by the USSR -- influences them to talk their classroom into staging a couple of minutes of silence to honor the Hungarian protesters.

That's all. Nothing special. No big deal.

Based on a real situation that arose in this particular classroom, the movie -- directed and adapted (from the book by Dietrich Garstka) by Lars Kraume, shown above -- turns out to be one of the more compelling, engrossing and moving films I've seen this year.

In fact, the film is right up there with Oscar-winner The Lives of Others in the detailed manner in which it captures life under Communist rule: when anyone -- say, those two boys who go to the movie theater (Theo, played by Leonard Scheicher, above, and Kurt (Tom Gramenz, below) -- proves foolish enough to, even slightly, question that rule.

As the kids' two minutes of "solidarity" slowly becomes "counter-revolution," once the higher-ups -- from teachers to principal to government flunkies and ugly high-level bureaucrats -- become involved, things turn simultaneously ridiculous and frightening, as entire families' lives begin to disintegrate.

The Silent Revolution is particularly good at demonstrating the ways in which this Communist/Fascist bureaucracy invades and threatens the individual, and as this threat increases and the kids are further worn down, your blood will start to boil.

Herr Kraume refuses to make the students simply good or bad; all of them are mixed bags, managing wrong and right as best they can and for reasons that are genuine but sometimes flawed. They try their best to present a united front, but their masters engage in lies and betrayal to break them.

The student for whom all this takes the greatest toll is Erik (dazzlingly portrayed by Jonas Dassler, above and below, left), whose journey from belief to belittlement is excruciating and surprisingly moving. Getting to the truth is one thing but getting any kind of justice is quite another

The film's Spartacus-like climax is just fine, but it's the very final moments that seal the deal. "I'm getting goosebumps," my spouse exclaimed, as The Silent Revolution came to its brilliant, beautiful, breathtaking end. I think you will remember these kids and their predicament for a good long time.

From Distrib Film US and released via Icarus Home Video, the movie -- in German with English subtitles and running 111 minutes -- hits the street on DVD and via VOD this Tuesday, October 1 -- for purchase and/or rental.

Good, intelligent filmmaking for folk who know their history: Trevor Nunn/Lindsay Shapero's RED JOAN

Oh, yes: And it also has Dame Judi Dench in the leading role (senior version; up-and-comer Sophie Cookson plays her younger self). If Dame Dench isn't enough to garner the mainstream/ arthouse crowd to RED JOAN, nothing will.

A set of very mixed reviews (only 30% positive on the notoriously unreliable Rotten Tomatoes site) oughtn't keep at least senior moviegoers away, for the film's very structure and execution is so by-the-book that few viewers should find it difficult to follow.

In this case, however, the "book" the film is "by" proves perfectly acceptable in its own right. The screenplay (from Lindsay Shapero) may be very dialog-heavy, but since the dialog is quite good, so what? Unfortunately, many in our younger critical establishment are more special-effects happy than dialog-prone, and I fear their understanding of world history is also somewhat lacking. This movie demands that, and many of our senior viewers are fairly fluent in it.

The film's director, legit theater's Trevor Nunn (above) also has the needed appreciation of dialog, and his filmmaking skills are good enough to adequately take us crisply and energetically along.

Though the film is said to be based upon a real-life case, it seems to TrustMovies that almost everything we see and hear has been so very added, changed or re-arranged that one might as well approach the movie as fiction, and simply sit back and go with the flow.

Red Joan begins with arrest of said red, now a very elderly woman (Dench, above), then immediately flashes back to those younger days (via Cookson, below), and continues this back-and-forth throughout, as we see how the young Joan is slowly and quite understandably sucked into the brand of mid-to-late 1930s European Communism that proved so popular with the younger generation of that day, when economic times were grave around the world and the Spanish Civil War was simultaneously erupting.

Two love stories figure into the plot, one with a hot young student, Leo (Tom Hughes, shown at bottom, left) who doubles as spy, the other with our heroine's older-but still-attractive boss, played by that fine actor Stephen Campbell Moore (below, right), who here -- despite the good work of Dench and Cookson (shown above), manages to provide both the film's emotional and moral compass.

The moral question is one of having to choose between betraying one's country (but not, as in Auden's example, one's friend) and betraying the world at large. While the choice will seem right or wrong, depending on your view of things, how and why that choice is made is presented quite well, I think. And Red Joan ends up an intelligent and pretty classy example of not really a thriller (as unfortunately the film is being marketed) but a thoughtful piece of history that doubles as moral dilemma.

From IFC Films, the movie opened last week on our cultural coasts and now expands to other cities across the country. Here in South Florida it will open tomorrow, Friday, May 3, in the Miami area at AMC's Aventura Mall 24 and Sunset Place 24, Landmark at Merrick Park and CMX Brickell City Centr; in Fort Lauderdale at the Classic Gateway 4; at the Movies of Delray and Movies of Lake Worth; in Palm Beach Gardens at the Cobb's Downtown at the Gardens 16; and at the AMC's City Place 20 in West Palm Beach. Wherever you are around the country, click here to find the theater nearest you.

Lower education unveiled in Jan Hřebejk/Petr Jarkovský's dark and delicious THE TEACHER

Another first-rate gem from the film-making team of director Jan Hřebejk and writer Petr Jarkovský, who have earlier given us Divided We Fall, Up and Down and Kawasaki's Rose, their newest venture -- THE TEACHER -- is also one of their best. Of course, we say this every time the pair makes a new movie. But, hey: It's true. I can't think of another film-making team that produces such consistently funny black comedies that are simultaneously ridden with examples of sad, weak and oh-so-real humanity. The combo is bracing, to say the least.

This Czech duo, pictured above with Mr. Jarkovský on the left, knows how to create situations so fraught with oddities and ironies that yet seem absolutely believable, and its combination of smart dialog, nimble direction and terrific performances results in movies that are both memorable and hugely entertaining.

So it is again with The Teacher, which tells the tale of a rather special teacher back in 1983, when Czechoslovakia was under the thumb of Communist Russia. One of the consistent surprises of this film-making team is how accessible, understandable and darkly funny it makes life under the Communist behemoth. I suppose that abusive power is pretty much the same all over the world; the degree to which is it used is what varies. Here in the USA we may just be seeing currently the fuller exposure of that particular iceberg.

Our teacher, played with a rich array of acting arsenal attributes by Zuzana Mauréry (above and below) has a fascinating and unfortunately all-too-easily-achieved way of working the system. TrustMovies will not go into details, for these are both original and too much fun to spoil your surprise.

Said to be based on a real situation that the writer and director make seem all the more so, The Teacher tackles the subject of fighting against injustice vs groveling to power, and the parents of the children of whom this teacher is in charge come down, as expected, on both sides of the issue and to varying degrees. What they say and how they say it in order to explain their position makes for much of the movie's exhilarating (if queasy-making) fun.

Bravery under Communism was hard to come by, and even when it reared its head, this might have been for as many wrong reasons as right. The filmmakers understand this, and they also know how to demonstrate it without finger-wagging or hammering it home. The situation, if it divides the parents (above), also brings together a set of students (below) who, under other circumstances, might have almost nothing in common. Here they bond -- in yet more irony!

Defection, education, submission and protest, the movie covers them all -- and more. By the time of its denouement, which takes Czechoslovakia to its post-Communist era, The Teacher unveils its final small-but-telling irony which is, like the film itself, a dark gem.

From Film Movement and running a just-right 103 minutes, the movie has its New York City premiere at Film Forum in New York City this coming Wednesday, August 30. Elsewhere? Well, it opens in Santa Fe at The Screen on Friday, September 8. Click here then scroll down to see futher upcoming playdates across the country.