Mädchen in Uniform

One of this month's TCM Spotlights is Women Make Film, a series of movies directed by women, about 100 in all. Every Tuesday in prime time, going through to sometime in December, we'll get a night of movies leading into the early hours of Wednesday morning which are all directed by women. There's also a documentary kicking off tonight (I'll admit to not checking whether it's a one-off documentary or like The Story of Film, something with a weekly episode throughout the spotlight.) A movie that I recently watched because saw that it was coming up as part of this spotlight is Mädchen in Uniform, which is on tomorrow morning at 7:15 AM.

The setting is a girls' boarding school in Prussia in the Weimar Republic attended by the daughters of army officers and run by the Oberin (Emilia Unda). She's informed at the beginning of the movie about a new student who's going to be attending, Manuela von Meinhardis (Hertha Thiele). Manuela's mother died some time back and she was raised by an aunt, since Dad was off in the army doing whatever it was that soldiers of that era did.

Manuela is shown around the place, and eventually informed that she's going to be sleeping in the dorm that has as its house mother (think Mrs. Garrett from The Facts of Life, but in this case much younger) Fräulein von Bernburg (Dorothea Wieck). This is apparently a big deal, since all of the girls really like and admire Bernburg because she's not only grown up, but better-looking and more womanly than the other, much older faculty members, and more sympathetic to boot. Among the classmates is Ilse (Ellen Schwanneke), who is the one all the students look up to as a sort of leader among the students.

This isn't an easy school to attend, because times are tough and money is tight. The girls complain about being hungry all the time, and they'd write their parents about it too. Except that the Oberin is so strict that only approved letters out are allowed; trying to smuggle a letter out is a big deal as we find when one student does just that. It's particularly tough for Manuela, who of course no longer has a mother and came from much more modest means. When Bernburg talks to Manuela and finds out about Manuela's situation, Bernburg gives Manuela one of her undergarments!

This is a big deal for Manuela. All of the students have looked up to Bernburg and had the sort of "crush" that seems to be a not-uncommon thing among girls who see someone who to them looks a much more worldly and grown-up woman. But for Manuela, it's more than that, most likely sexual desire as well. (Apparently, the play makes it much more explicit than the movie, but I haven't seen the play.)

The girls put on a performance of Friedrich Schiller's Don Juan for the Oberin's birthday, and at a party afterwards, Manuela drinks too much spiked punch; getting tipsy, she tells all the other students how she really feels about Bernburg. Word obviously gets to the Oberin, who is pissed. Will the Oberin's punishment of Manuela lead to tragic consequences?

Mädchen in Uniform is a really interesting movie, in that it touches on themes that would have been extremely taboo a few short years later, in Germany thanks to the rise of the Nazis and in the US because of the Production Code; not that they weren't taboo when the movie was made, of course. The plot, to be honest, is fairly slow in developing, with most of the interesting stuff coming in the final half hour. That isn't to say the movie is at all bad, however. For whatever reason I also found myself thinking of The Children's Hour and Tea and Sympathy.

Mädchen in Uniform is absolutely worth watching. It received a Blu-ray release courtesy of Kino a few months back, too.