Lore (pronounced
Laura) is an Australian-German co production set in the Spring of 1945. As
World War Two comes to an end, a young woman finds her world turned upside down
as everything she believed to be true, turns out to be false. Lore (Saskia Rosendahl)
is the teenage daughter of hard-line Nazis whose parents leave to go into
hiding as the Allies tighten their net around Germany. Lore is left to look after
herself and four younger siblings in a Germany in which their Aryan
superiority is now a handicap. As the children set out for the weeks long walk
towards their Grandmother’s house in Hamburg they are followed by a young man
called Thomas (Kai Malina) who occasionally helps them but turns out to be a
Jew, recently freed from a camp.
I’d never heard of this film until two nights ago when I was
watching last week’s Film 2013 and it
got a glowing review. Knowing my girlfriend and I were heading into the city
centre the next day we decided to see it at our local art house cinema on the
recommendation of the TV critics. I’m glad that we did. I found Lore to be a compelling coming of age
drama and a fresh story set in a micro world around a much farmed era of film
making.
