MINISERIES: Generation War (2013)

                        “Generation War” is a German miniseries set in WWII.  It is literally entitled “Our Mothers, Our Fathers”.  The series was shown in three parts on German television.  It was well-received, but has created some controversy.  It follows five friends from 1941-1945.

                        Charlotte (Miriam Stein) will become a nurse on the Eastern Front.  She is in love with Wilhelm (Volker Bruch) who is an officer in Russia.  His brother Friedheim (Tom Schilling) is a book-worm who has joined the army and is shipped east.  Greta (Katharina Schuttler) is an aspiring singer.  Her boyfriend is Victor (Ludwig Trepte) who is Jewish.  In June, 1941 in Berlin, the quintet has one last party before their paths diverge.  They make plans to meet again at the end of the war.  Their various paths will converge several times before the war ends because this is a miniseries.  Each character has a different arc.  Greta achieves her fame as a singer by way of an advantageous affair with a Gestapo officer.  Victor gets shipped off to a concentration camp, but escapes to join a Polish resistance group.  Greta works in hospitals where she sees the horrors of the war and worries about Wilhelm.  Wilhelm ends up in a disciplinary battalion.  Friedheim surprises everyone by becoming a warrior.  Not all of them will make that post-war get-together.

                        The series is well-cast with an attractive ensemble.  Each character is distinctive and you care about what will happen to them.  And a lot happens to them.  Some of it is unrealistic as the movie has a small world feel to it.  There are a lot of coincidences.  This was unavoidable given the need to intersect the arcs for narrative purposes.  It gets a bit ridiculous towards the end, however.  All five arcs make sense and take us to some rare cinematic destinations.  Greta in the hospitals.  Victor in the resistance unit.  Wilhelm in a punishment battalion.  Most of what happens is unpredictable which is something of a weakness in the end because none of them should have survived.  The series is clearly anti-war, but it dilutes this with a relatively positive ending.  

  

                        The series shifts between characters seamlessly which means we shift from soap opera (Greta) to medical drama (Charlotte) to partisan warfare (Victor) to combat film (Wilhelm and Friedheim).  The battle scenes are of the new style associated with “Saving Private Ryan”.  For example, Wilhelm suffers from sensory deprivation at one point.  The sets are realistic and the weapons and uniforms seem to be authentic.  These scenes are enough to keep the combat junkies satisfied, but the movie is a traditional war miniseries similar to “War and Remembrance” in that it concentrates more on human interaction rather than combat.

                        The series has been criticized for several theme choices.  Some were upset with the depiction of the Polish resistance as being very anti-semitic.  Victor has to hide his identity from his mates.  The same critics were upset that Victor did not get to the concentration camp. They felt the series did not reference the Holocaust enough.  I would argue that we have enough concentration camp movies and it was a bit refreshing to see Victor fighting the Nazis, instead of being a victim.  Ironically, another criticism is that the series seems to make the Germans the victims.  The four non-Jewish Germans are not typical Germans in that none are Nazi supporters.  The series gives the impression that young Germans were caught up in the flow of a war they did not support.  That anti-Nazi sentiment would not have been common.  These complaints are legitimate, but as entertainment, with some basic education, the series works.

                        “Generation War” is one of the better war miniseries.  Although legitimately criticized for being too sympathetic toward its characters, it is surprisingly harsh for a German production.  You certainly don’t wish you had been in their shoes.  It seems like the right story for our times.

GRADE  =  A-