A Time to Love and a Time to Die

The Film Society is quite fond of Douglas Sirk, and with the 100th celebrations, and Anzac Day around the corner, this is a chance for them to show a war film that ticks all sorts of boxes, A Time to Love and a Time to Die.

Germans on the Russian German front are having a tough time of it, and Greber is lucky enough to get a furlough home for three weeks. However, his city, and actual house, was bombed, and so he is trying to find his family. Along the way, he encounters Elisabeth, the family doctor's daughter, and together they find some happiness in between air raids. Ah, but this is Douglas Sirk, so yeah...

I'm guessing they went for telling the German story because a) that was the book, and b) you couldn't tell the story happening to Americans, because no American city (outside of Pearl Harbour) was bombed. And yet, I can't help but feel that they wouldn't be able to make this movie today. Any war movie that isn't intensely pro-American would be considered the terrorists winning. Or it would be made by an indie studio, and never seen.

Good performances, and believable ones, so this is a decent movie to watch.

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