Lore

2012 / Germany, Australia, UK / German and English with English subtitles / 109 min / DCP Director: Cate Shortland
Cast: Saskia Rosendahl, Kai Malina, Nele Trebs Print Source: Music Box Films

Named simply after its protagonist and based on the Rachel Seiffert novel of the same title, Lore is an Australian-German drama set in May of 1945, immediately following World War II, that chronicles a teenage girl (Saskia Rosendahl, in her debut performance) and her four younger siblings’ journey from southwestern Germany to their grandmother’s home in Hamburg after their high-ranking Nazi parents flee without them to avoid capture by Allied Forces. The 900 km trek through the damaged country introduces the children to both helpful and threatening parties, but it is their encounter and banding together with Thomas (Kai Malina) a young, elusive concentration camp refugee that proves to be the most significant as he takes on the role of guardian to the siblings. Plagued by tangled emotions of loathing and lust, Lore must shed the identity she was raised with to embody and embrace an instinct to trust the key to her and her siblings’ survival. J.R. Jones of The Chicago Reader writes, “Saskia Rosendahl gives an impressively poised performance as a beautiful teenager, whose determination to protect her remaining family coincides with her growing revulsion toward her parents as she begins to understand the enormity of her father’s crimes.”