Franz + Polina

Bjelorussia 1943, A German SS unit is billeted in a small village. Frantz stays together with an older Sergeant in the home of Paulina's mother. Besides the Paulina, the mother and the 2 German soldiers there is nobody else living in the building. Paulina's father and brother are with the partisans in the surrounding forests. Paulina's mother takes good care of all inhabitants like mothers do with love and compassion. Good that she can't understand the older sergeant's prejudices. Hitlers propanganda maschine instructed the German soldiers to treat Russian peasants like untermenschen (subhumans). Not all German soldiers bought those lies, and Frantz is one of them. The sergeant clearly displays some insecurities regarding this policy. Those insults are merely lost, because there is a language barrier. Frantz seems to ignore his sergeants opinions, and starts to flirt with Paulina. The sergeant is not a brute or brawler, more a prisoner of the time. He has a good site, shown when he fixes mechanical devices in the house, like an old defective watch. Everything seems very peaceful at first, until the order arrives, that the village has to fall victim to the "burnt earth" strategy of the retreating Wehrmacht. - Ernst Wiltmann, IMDb