Elective Affinities

Goethe can't be much read recreationally these days, and this characteristic East German production is unlikely to spark much fresh interest. The novel's central analogy - chemical processes representing human relations, one nature calling to another, being repelled by a third - is no more helpful in this version, and the plot Goethe devised by way of illustration must be an adaptor's nightmare. The Kühns negotiate the more implausible moments by omission and ambiguity; and the four principals are skilled attention-holders. But the sense is that the movie originated not in any urgent personal engagement, but in the compulsion of the GDR film industry to adapt the country's literary classics, one by one.