The Promise

In tracing the love affair of two bright young East Germans - Konrad (played in gauche youth by Zollner, in soulful maturity by Zirner) and Sophie (Becker in her rock'n'rollin' days, Harfouch in her svelte designer mode) - separated from the outset when she escapes to the West, Margarethe von Trotta, a doyenne of the leftist New German Cinema of the '70s and '80s, seems to be attempting too much: a history, in personal terms, of the two Germanys from the building of the Wall, in 1961, to its fall. When the couple meet up in Prague, in the spring, you know the tanks of '68 will crush their chances of being re-united; their son's sole function seems to be as a symbolic bond between the two states; and when Konrad becomes an eminent scientist, specialising in the periodicity of sunspots, one wearily suspects yet another ironic metaphoris on offer. On the plus side, there's a bold, eclectic blend of vérité-style footage, still photographs and straightforward narrative, while Jürgen Knieper's sub-Georges Delerue strings often evoke a sympathetic mournfulness.