| Friesennot | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Peter Hagen |
| Produced by | Alfred Bittins (line producer) Dr. Scheunemann (line producer) Hermann Schmidt (producer) |
| Written by | Werner Kortwich (writer) |
| Starring | See below |
| Music by | Walter Gronostay |
| Cinematography | Sepp Allgeier |
| Editing by | W. Becker |
| Release date(s) | 1935 |
| Running time | 97 minutes (Germany) |
| Country | Germany |
| Language | German |
Friesennot is a 1935 German film directed by Peter Hagen.[1]
The film is also known as Dorf im roten Sturm (German reissue title) and Frisions in Distress (USA).
Contents |
Communists authorities are making life as difficult as possible for a village of Volga Germans in the Soviet Union, with taxes and other oppression.[2] When Mette, a half-Russian, half-Frisian woman, becomes the girlfriend of Kommissar Tschernoff, the Frisians murder her and throw her body in the swamp.[3] Open violence breaks out, and the Red Army soldiers are all killed; the villagers set fire to their village and flee.[3]
Despite Nazi hostility to religion, a cynical piece of anti-Communist propaganda depicts the Communists as posting obscene anti-religious posters, and the Friesans as piously declaring that all authority comes from God.[4]
The portrayal of Cherkov does not conform to the heavy-hand depiction of Communist as brutal and murderous in such films as Flüchtlinge; he is truly and passionately in love with Mette, and only with her death does he unleash his soldiers.[3] A villager objects to the affair on the grounds that even though her mother was Russian, her father's Friesan blood "outweighs" foreign blood, and therefore she must not throw herself at a foreigner.[3] Her murder is presented as in accordance with ancient Germanic custom for "race pollution."[5]
After the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, in 1939, the film was banned; in 1941, after the invasion of Russia, it was reissued under its new title.[6]