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Berlin 36

Country: Germany, Language: German, 100 mins

  • Director: Kaspar Heidelbach
  • Writer: Lothar Kurzawa; Eric Friedler
  • Producer: Doris J. Heinze; Jörn Klamroth

CGiii Comment

All hail the Olympic spirit...!

Avery Brundage - a vile stain on Olympic history - for 20 years this inexecrable character served as the President of the International Olympic Committee...a racist, an anti-Semite...a Nazi.

All hail the Olympic spirit...shame on you all.

Now that we've got that off of our chest...to the film...

The real-life Dora Ratjen...her name has been changed to Marie Ketteler...for cinematic purposes and, perhaps, for fearful legal repercussions...this film is a gross bastardisation of fact.

It is a fiction...rendering the film, in part (if not wholly)...redundant.

Beautifully photographed and competently acted...however, the story's power is diluted.

Both Bergmann and Ratjen deserve better films about their lives - i.e. accurate, truthful.

Ratjen, most definitely, had a bizarre existence - yet, dying in 2008, he never once gave an interview...now, that's a film...that's solitude.


Trailer...

The(ir) Blurb...

In the days leading up to the 1936 Olympics, the fate of high jumper Gretel Bergmann hangs in the balance as it is decided whether or not a Jewish athlete can be a part of the German Olympic team.

Cast & Characters

Karoline Herfurth as Gretel Bergmann;
Sebastian Urzendowsky as Marie Ketteler;
Axel Prahl as Hans Waldmann;
August Zirner as Edwin Bergmann;
Maria Happel as Paula Bergmann;
Franz Dinda as Rudolph Bergmann;
Leon Seidel as Walter Bergmann;
Thomas Thieme as Hans von Tschammer und Osten;
Johann von Bülow as Karl Ritter von Halt;
Julie Engelbrecht as Elisabeth 'Lilly' Vogt