LINA BRAAKE

Germany, 1975, 85 minutes, Colour.
Lina Carstens, Fritz Rasp.
Directed by Bernhard Sinkel.

Lina Braake is a tongue-in-cheek German film from the 1970s.

It focuses on an eighty-one-year-old woman who is forced out of her apartment when the bank takes it over. The film goes into great detail about her arrival in a home for the elderly and her having to settle there. One of the inmates is a former businessman, very shrewd, who is involved in many illegal transactions. He and Lina Braake as well as an Italian hairdresser become involved in a scheme to rob the bank – and get even.

The film is both character study as well as an interesting look at the preparations for the robbing of the bank.

The star, Lina Carstens, had a long career in German films beginning in the 1930s. She died soon after the completion of this film.

1 An award-winning film? Quality? Production values? Humanity? Universal themes?

2. German production: colour photography, cities, apartments, banks, old age homes? The contrast with Sardinia? The musical score?

3. The credibility of the characters and their situations? Plausible behaviour? contrived for the purposes of the film? The banks, their harshness towards their clients, the confidence trick by the old people? Audience sympathy for the attack on the banks, for the old people?

4. Lina's experience of the bank and the harshness? The film's emphasis on banks - standing for big business? The arguments, the law, the threat of court case, evictions?

5. Lina and her age, her friends, the people in the street, her strengths?

6. Her preparations for going to the home: the manager, the organisers, friendship with the handyman, the first meals. her wandering around the building and the grounds, the cliques of the old people, criticisms, the rooms, sleeping, the meals. regulations, budgets? The old people being treated like children? The regularity of deaths? The inspectors, the government money deals, the harassed officials and their treatment of the old people?

7. The impact of Lina's arrival: the lonely room, the meal, the egg, her illness? The encounter with Gustaf and settling in?

8. Gustaf and his style: discussions, companionship, help. plans and details, the intricate execution of the confidence trick on the bank, the money and the enjoyment of the overcoming of the bank?

9. Lina and the bike, her feeling alive, the money? The encounter with Ettore and company? The buying of the dog? Her carrying off the bank trick? The party?

10. The contrast with the son of Sardinia, the Italian way of life contrasting with the German? The effect on Lina? Joy, peace, exhilaration? The use of the Italian song?

11. The contrast with the return to Germany, the legal implications? The attitudes of the bank and the officials? Their deciding not to prosecute? Lina winning a moral victory?

12. Themes of law, justice, oppression, inhumanity? The presentation of old age, human dignity? old age and the respect deserved and the treatment merited?