Divided Heaven

Konrad Wolf's 1964 screen adaptation of the titular novel by Christa Wolf (no relation), a coming-of-age story set in East Germany in the late 1950s, was made during the brief “thaw” of the '60s, when socially daring and politically critical films were allowed to be produced in the Communist country. Renate Blume stars as Rita, a young woman recovering from a nervous breakdown who returns to her home village, where she recalls the past two years of her life. An idealistic student about to enter a teachers college, Rita moved in with her older boyfriend, Manfred (Eberhard Esche), an ambitious chemical engineer with a great future and high hopes. After taking a summer job working in a factory, Rita discovers that her future is dependent on the political party meetings that will ultimately pass judgment on her—and everyone else's—commitment to socialist ideals; meanwhile, Manfred watches as science takes a backseat to deal-making, ultimately fleeing to West Berlin just weeks before the Berlin Wall is built, hoping Rita will join him. Unseen for decades, Divided Heaven is a dense work full of complicated power struggles and personal conflicts, a daring glimpse of life behind the Iron Curtain that reveals disillusionment with a world characterized by petty bureaucratic squabbles and scapegoating. Highly recommended. (S. Axmaker)