This brilliant German film explores two fundamental questions: whether it is possible to collaborate with a fundamentally oppressive state, and the acute degree of personal loneliness felt by those who cannot, and whom the state thereby treats as its enemies. The mundane depersonalisation of life under the Stasi is captured much more acutely, it seems to me, in this story than in the more acclaimed 'The Lives of Others'; that the leading collaborator is arguably a decent and attractive person, albeit one who has made different choices to the admirable but not wholly likable heroine, adds subtlety and humanity to the overall portrait of society. Both protagonists are excellent in their roles; the camera-work captures the underlying feelings of alienation in a way that reminded me of early Kieslowski. 'Barbara' is by turns bleak, poetic, emotional and thought-provoking: it deserves to be more widely known.
