Why so much hype?

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Girls in Uniform is a feminist classic.This film is one of the hidden themes of early German cinema. For a movie that was made in 1931 the structure was very good. Light is used to indicate the repression of the girls. The girls were in a world full of darkness by the authorities of the boarding school. The interesting thing was that the main focus was on the relationship between Manuela and her teacher, there were other relationships too but they ware not the main focus. My feeling is that none of those girls were happy in that school but they learned to handle the situation and simply to live with it.

Madchen in Uniform was a surprisingly bold movie for its time. Set in Germany, before the Nazis came into power, Madchen in Uniform addresses the issue of lesbianism in an all girls boarding, and, in a broader sense, society. Although by no means as graphic and as explicit as films produced today, Madchen in Uniform was still a candid portrayal of homosexuality for its time. Aside from the actual topic though, I personally didn't feel that there was much to the movie. The movie lacked any real plot. It mainly revolved around a young girl, who, because of being homesick, found both security and love in a teacher. It is true that the movie was a source of much controversy, but as far as I'm concerned, this is the entire movie was able to accomplish.

My initial reaction to this film was that it served no purpose. It seemed, to me at least, to be about a German boarding school for girls who mostly had lesbian infatuations with their teacher and other students. Although this is what it is mainly about, its true nature is to illustrate the bonds and relationships created between friends, and also to show the importance of a maternal figure in a girl's life. When Manuela first arrives at the school, she has a gap in her life that would usually be filled by a mother figure. Because her mother died, her father did not know how to take care of her, and her aunt did not give her the love she needed, she searches for someone who can give her what she has been lacking for so long. Fraulein von Bernburg is the teacher who can do this. She is strict with the students, yet does not punish them. She treats Manuela in a way she does no other. If this love began as something similar to the type a family would share, it slowly transitions to something more than that. It creates a bond between them that is not permitted in the school, but in the end it allows both Manuela and Fraulein von Bernburg to be set free from the oppression of the school. A criticism I have, though, is the ending. Once the finale occurs, it just ends. No closure is brought to these characters. Although it was a touching story line, for the most part, this movie was not very entertaining.

Mädchen in Uniform is a very impressive German film that presents an unusual sexual awakening in an equally unusual situation, which leads to some complex content to analyze. It is clearly the presentation of a sexuality that is not considered normal, but it is not necessarily a lesbian film. I think that the fact that there is not a single man in the film and, even more, the intimate relationship between Manuela and Fräulein von Bernburg, give the impression that there is a strong lesbian undertone in the film, but I don't think that it was meant to be seen that way. It seemed to me that it was more of a coming of age film than a lesbian film. I think that Mädchen in Uniform was the portrayal of a girl who needed a higher than average amount of attention and who was reaching the age where her sexuality was beginning to take form, and because she was in an all-girl school and had no male influence in her life, she attached to the most accessible person who could fulfill those needs - Fräulein von Bernburg. It seemed to me that Manuela became so amorously attached to Fräulein von Bernburg more because of a lack of options than because of an interest in the same sex. There is undeniably a lot of female/female eroticism in the film (such as that goodnight kiss), but I don't think that it is a portrayal of lesbianism. It seems to me that the film has at least as much to say about budding sexuality and freedom of exploration for teenagers as it does about homosexuality.Manuela's needs for attention (and the same need harbored by the other girls in the film) was most directly presented in the scene where Fräulein von Bernburg comes through the room to kiss the girls goodnight one by one. In the novel Swann's Way, Marcel Proust presents a character who is so obsessed with his goodnight kiss from his mother that he literally fantasizes about it all day, and then is miserable after she kisses him because he will have to wait so long before he gets that attention from her again. He is completely dependent on that kiss, and in that gigantic novel, a large part of the reason that he is so obsessed with his mother's kiss is because he is largely isolated from the outside world an has an emotionally distant father. His only source of affectionate attention is from his mother, and it is portrayed in a way that almost seems incestuous because he loves so much to feel his mothers lips on his face. This is the same thing that is going on in Mädchen in Uniform, except in a slightly different form. Now, whether or not Mädchen in Uniform is, in fact, a lesbian film, there are definitely some typical stereotypes derailed in the close of the movie. Manuela was driven to the point of suicide by the adults at the all-girl school she attended, and it was the children who had to come in to save her (which is an element of the story that strengthens the assertion that it supports freedom for teenagers, who are clearly able to make wise decisions on their own, or at least need to be given at least a small amount of freedom and respect), and there is also the fact that she did not commit suicide, which is significant because it would have been the stereotypical way for a woman (especially a homosexual woman) to respond to a stressful situation that she cannot control.It seemed to me that in that way, the movie broke down some stereotypes, but it is important to really analyze the film so that we can see what, if any, stereotypes are applied to the characters and to the story. The sexuality in the film is obviously not traditional, but one must take into account the circumstances under which that sexuality is portrayed before one can decipher a specific message from the film.