Rape in World War II film: comparing narrations
Rape in World War II film: comparing narrations

Summary/Abstract: The objective of this paper is to show how the filmmaker’s genre of choiceshapes the main discourse of the film. The author compares Helke Sander’sdocumentary Liberators Take Liberties (1991-1992) and Max Farberbock’snarrative feature A Woman in Berlin (2008) both dealing with the dramaticeffect of the end of WWII, in particular with the instances of Germanwomen having been raped by the Allied troops, a theme first publicized inthe anonymous diary A Woman in Berlin (1953). There is a clear connectionbetween the book and the two films, but if Sander focuses on the rape itself andon the extraordinary female experience of war, Farberbock is more concernedwith cross-national revenge. The author looks closer at the genre elements,particularly at the genres of the diary, the (feminist) documentary, and thenarrative film. Then, the author draws some parallels between the HelkeSander film and the diary A Woman of Berlin and discusses the documentarieswithin the feminist framework inspired by Sander’s accomplishments.

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