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Review

Understated, yet subtly disquieting, this drama explores destructive human behavior -- both in personal relationships as well as politics. Set in 1919 in a forlorn country Baltic estate, the story traces the lives of a middle-aged woman (von Trotta), her brother and a German lodger who find themselves slowly impoverished by the civil war and anxious over the advancement of Red troops on their land. The woman, desperate for affection, falls obsessively in love with a Soviet soldier, a man who does not return the love and is soon driven away by her erratic and at times virulent behavior. A serious portrait of bitterly restrained people caught in the whirlwind of change. (German with English subtitles)