An important question that we often need to ask is whether we can excuse a deeply flawed film based on the value of its message. Objectively, the answer should be resoundingly negative, since art should not be judged more leniently based on the ideas that went into its creation. Unfortunately, we don’t like in a world where this is regularly the case, which is why a film like Marianne and Juliane (German: Die bleierne Zeit) can be seen as a major achievement, despite being the definition of mind-numbingly dull and unconvincing, with the majority of praise asserted on this film coming from those who appreciate the message rather than how it was told. Margarethe von Trotta, who wrote and directed the film, is certainly not without talent as she has been the epitome of longevity, having made several incredible films, and often showcasing a formidable control of her projects, many of which looked at very urgent matters in a way that was insightful and meaningful – but it seemed like the story of two wayward sisters fighting for women’s liberation in post-war Germany is the one that represented one of the rare instances where she didn’t achieve anything particularly convincing, instead stringing together two hours of aimless narrative fragments that fail to reach any coherent point, despite the potential that can be found embedded deep within the story. The disparity between intention and execution echoes throughout the film and proves how von Trotta was consistently scrambling to pull together various threads that just don’t lead to anything fruitful, making Marianne and Juliane one of the most dour and unlikable films of its era.

One of the most notable problems with Marianne and Juliane comes in the duality of the story. The film does focus on two individuals, who (despite being sisters) are wildly different in their approach to a very pivotal issue faced by women in Germany at this time. However, the film struggles to weave them together in any way that seems convincing, which is disappointing considering there is a good story here, it is just buried under layers of cold and arid components that are designed to be aloof, but not nearly as alienating as they turned out to be, which is one of the reasons behind the film almost immediately leaving us at a distance. This would be a decent tactic for a film that tackled more abstract subject matter, but employing it in one designed to draw attention to the civil rights movement for women in Europe at the time seems inappropriate – and this isn’t even counting in the fact that the story itself is often bordering on poor taste, being remarkably manipulative in moments where it does attempt to expand on these characters and their internal states while being intentionally opaque in other instances. Put in the most simple terms, Marianne and Juliane is a film that doesn’t know what it wants to be, nor does it seem to have any idea of where it wants the viewer to look for meaning. The historical context is heavy-handed to say the least, while the more fictional aspects of the story seem to betray the actual message – and despite the director’s supposed best efforts, we’re never once let into the minds of these characters, who are just as unapproachable as the film itself, leading us to lose all interest in these individuals and whatever they represent.

Considering the narrative shortcomings, it doesn’t help that Marianne and Juliane are extraordinarily drab – understandably, a film like this can’t be expected to be a spectacle, so we tend to forgive the simpler approach. However, the challenge here was finding the heart in this dull and hostile atmosphere, which is difficult but not impossible, or at least one would assume, since von Trotta does support the latter, constantly struggling to do anything particularly notable with the story, and allowing the dreadful beigeness to envelope the entire film, to the point where it is so void of not only humour, but humanity as a whole. The fatal mistake made by the director was explaining the supposed beliefs of these characters without actually diving deep into it – everything occurs so fast, and the majority of what propels the film is done through inference, with the viewer having to draw their own conclusions, which is rarely (if ever) a good strategy, since it offers very little in terms of insight into who these characters are, failing to allow us to have even the most fundamental connection with these people. It is easy to tell that Marianne and Juliane is an entirely original and fictional work, since everything is so poorly defined, it would be impossible to have such a dismal plot and character development had it been based on anything tangible. Instead, von Trotta is forming this film around a set of ideas, which isn’t a bad idea on its own, but becomes a chore to get through when we see how there is very little substance underlying the film, leading to a genuinely unpleasant film, and not the kind that incites discomfort for the purpose of provoking thought, but rather one that is just poorly-constructed.

Considering the film is designed to be a deep and meaningful character study, we’d at least assume effort was put into defining the individuals at the heart of the story. Unfortunately, despite having a few very gifted performers in major roles, the actors in Marianne and Juliane are barely effective, despite their clear talents. Jutta Lampe and Barbara Sukowa are exceptional performers who would normally be strong enough to sustain even the weakest efforts – and the fact that this film is based almost entirely around their perspective (with all other characters being peripheral at best), the story offered them the opportunity to command the screen all on their own. Yet, whether individually or together, they’re both incredibly disappointing. Neither one is particularly well-formed, and both seem to be drawing from the same ambiguous set of quirks that are supposed to add nuance to these characters but ultimately deprive them of anything vaguely interesting. It doesn’t help that the film really wants to be about Sukowa’s character (to the point where the title lists her character’s name first) but filtered through the perspective of Lampe’s character, who is far less compelling and exists more as a reactionary to the other characters. The film is enormously disappointing even when looking at something as integral as the performances, which don’t do much to rectify the clear shortcomings that plague this film.

There’s a level of deprivation that consumes Marianne and Juliane, forcing its very admirable message to be thrust into the background in favour of a film that doesn’t really care about its characters nearly as much as it wants us to believe it does. The motivations are impoverished and wildly demented, rarely making any sense outside of serving an agenda that is never made particularly clear. It almost seems as if von Trotta is more enamoured with the idea of making a film about the allure of feminism, rather than the actual movement itself since we are introduced to these radical feminists who are divided theoretically, but instead of being shown their differences in a tangible way, they’re reduced to brief conversations that never have much substance to them – and this isn’t even saying anything about how the film so gleefully leaps through time, casually eliding entire chunks of narrative and forcing the viewer to come up with the resolution ourselves, which makes the film even more of a chore. Ultimately, Marianne and Juliane is not a very good film at all, with the story (which could’ve been a strong civil rights drama) devolving into an overwrought bundle of idiosyncratic tics masquerading as a self-important socio-political thriller. It makes for frustrating, inaccessible viewing that does not give viewers outside the immediate cultural milieu much of an opportunity to connect, and just leaves us to figure it out for ourselves, which is never a viable option when dealing with a story centred around issues as important as we see throughout this deeply mediocre film.