‘In Liebe, Eure Hilde’ review: the quiet resistance film impresses
Director: Andreas Dresen| Script: Laila Stieler | Cast: Liv Lisa Fries (Hilde Coppi), Johannes Hegeman (Hans Coppi), Lisa Wagner (Anneliese Kühn), Alexander Scheer (Pastor Harald Poelchau), Lena Urzendowsky (Liane Berkowitz), each | Playing time: 124 minutes | Year: 2024
The resistance has many faces and many heroes. It is certainly not always the case that resistance is accompanied by great feats, such as hidden people smuggling or sabotage of a railway line. There was also a lot of small resistance during World War II. A resistance that may seem more innocent, but was just as dangerous. resistance film With love your Hilde gives that small resistance a face based on the true story of a group of German friends who get into the biggest trouble possible with seemingly small acts of resistance.
Placing stickers with anti-war slogans or writing letters to relatives of prisoners of war containing information received through illegal radio transmissions: “Soldier So-and-So is trapped in Moscow and would like to tell his parents that he is receiving good food.” It all seems innocent enough. Much of the resistance of Hilde, Hans Coppi, and their friends feels more like youthful rebellion than earth-shattering betrayal. Especially since it all takes place during a deceptively carefree summer.
A summer that seems very far away when the film begins with the gray winter that follows. Hilde is arrested. Her husband Hans and many of his friends are already detained. Suspicion is high treason. The death penalty hangs over their heads. In a cold office, Hilde receives one question after another. The interrogation is recorded on a typewriter with hard lines. Hilde, who is very pregnant, first tries to talk her way out of this, but soon seems to realize that her interrogators don’t care. They decided a long time ago that she is guilty. Which is actually correct. It turns out that she really did everything she is accused of.
With love your Hilde it jumps back and forth between Hilde’s time in prison and the summer in which her actions took place. The contrast between these two worlds is great. The present, the period of Hilde’s arrest and imprisonment, is gray and cold. As if a gray veil covered the lens and with it Hilde’s world. The past is warm and colorful.
It is precisely in that scenario where the resistance of the group of friends feels most innocent. One minute they’re experimenting with sending radio messages to Russia, and the next they’re dancing, drinking, laughing, and making love. As if resistance was just one of the many activities they simply did that summer. More mischief than betrayal. Especially since Hilde is not at all a typical heroine. She is modest, sometimes even shy. When asked in court why she associated herself with traitors like Hans, her response is: “Because she loved him.”
It is that apparent innocence that makes Hilde a strong protagonist. In one of her warm memories, she confesses to Hans that she wants to not be afraid. I am no longer afraid of Nazis, of love and of life. But in that gray prison we see that in reality it already is. He bears the consequences of his actions with a kind of powerful resignation. Not because he has given up, but because he can live – and die – with his choices. With his back straight and the shoulders that many of his fellow prisoners regularly lean on, he faces his inevitable fate. An attitude that makes even the prison guard, with the corners of his mouth eternally hanging, seem to lock Hilde in his frozen heart.
There is much debate among historians about the actual impact of the resistance group that would later become known as Die Rote Kapelle. Was it little more than a youth rebellion or did they actually leak crucial information to Russian troops via their radio? With love your Hilde emphasize that it doesn’t matter. Precisely because the impact you have on the people in your immediate environment makes the real difference.