Rosa Luxemburg

The film covers the last fifteen years of Rosa Luxemburg: a woman who came from Poland, rose inside the German Social Democratic Party and broke with it over the war vote. The periods in prison, her relationship with Karl Liebknecht, her bond with Leo Jogiches and her murder in 1919 are the frame. Margarethe von Trotta writes and directs. Barbara Sukowa plays Rosa. Sukowa won best actress at the 1986 Cannes film festival for the part. The film's choice is to refuse to separate the political figure from the private life. The letters, the plants in the prison yard, the cats and the friendships are given the same weight as the speeches; von Trotta builds this not as a softening but as a whole. The source is largely Luxemburg's own letters and writings, and many lines are taken directly from the texts. The matter at the centre is the war vote. The Social Democrats voting for war credits in 1914 was a breaking point for the European left, and the film takes it on directly. The death is not extended on screen; the narrative shows it briefly and then falls silent. Who it is for: viewers who follow political biography and the eighties generation of German cinema. Who it is not for: the historical context is dense, there are many characters, and the film does not trouble to explain the political arguments of the period.