Lore **½ (NR) This German drama serves up a mixed bag of emotions. In the waning days of World War II, a mother leaves her five children in the hands of the eldest, teenaged Lore, in an isolated house. Mom is about to be hauled off by the authorities, presumably for the role she and her husband played in some of the Nazis’ inglorious activities. The kids must fend for themselves, trying to reach a relative’s home in Hamburg, with little in the way of assets or security.
Most tales of Nazi-era ordeals feature those hiding from them and/or fighting for someone’s resistance movement. We start off empathizing with a girl in her mid-teens trudging through dangerous terrain, with a younger sister, twin boys and a baby completely dependent on her. She lies about their mother’s fate to keep them hopeful. Along the way, they face many threats, and get help from a handful of unlikely or dubious sources. Even though she’s a scared kid, we also see how the years of propaganda from her government and parents seeped in with lingering effects that make her not quite the protagonist we thought we were getting.
As they slog through the devastated countryside, dodging the Allies’ occupying forces and scrounging for food and shelter, we see the full spectrum of post-war attitudes among the suffering Germans. Some are still loyal to Hitler and can’t believe they lost. Others are relieved to be free from their oppression. Still others never really cared about the geopolitics; they just did what they could to cope, hoping for as little impact on their farms and villages as larger forces and fate might allow.
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The proceedings are quietly suspenseful, with several unexpected twists. Even so, the novel perspective of post-war survival for a previously un-depicted part of the populace makes this one rather thought-provoking. It’s a stretch to be presented the emotional quagmire of kids raised to fear "the good guys" who were trying to help stabilize their homeland, and carrying the inner scars of all the hatred they were taught before they experienced enough of life to form their own opinions. (3/15/13)