Das Schweigende Klassenzimmer (4 Stars)

"What good is the revolution if it's only in our heads?"

This German film's title means "The Silent Classroom", and it's based on true events that happened in East Germany in 1956. It starts with two teenage boys going on a day trip to West Berlin to see the film "Liane" in the cinema. Like all teenage boys, they were thrilled at the possibility of seeing bare breasts, even though the nudity was very tame by today's standards. In those days (while televisions were rare) it was common for there to be news reports before films started. In the newscast the boys heard about the ongoing Hungarian Uprising. They were immediately sympathetic with the deaths in the struggle of the Hungarian people against the Russian occupation, so they arranged a two-minute silence in their classroom when they returned.

This immediately sparked an aggressive response, first from the school itself, then from the government. The investigator Renate Kessler, pictured above, uses the ever useful tactic of setting the school children against one another. The original intention is to take action against the protest's leader, but when none of the children betray one another and they all take responsibility, the whole class is suspended.

The happy ending is that all but four of the children flee to West Berlin over the Christmas holidays. Those were the days before the construction of the Berlin Wall, so escape was easier.

I've always had a weakness for films based on true stories, and I love films about the former East German state. This is an excellent film, with great performances by the young cast, who're the future of the German film industry.