Kriegerin
Director: David Wnendt
Writer: David Wnendt
Cast: Alina Levshin, Jella Haase, Sayed Ahmad, Gerdy Zint, Lukas Steltner

Plot:
Marisa (Alina Levshin) is part of a group of neo-Nazis in Germany. This group is the only place where she feels she belongs, as her relationship with her mother is strained and her grandfather who she adores completely is dying in the hospital. Two new people come into her rather joyless and aggression-filled existence: Svenja (Jella Haase), a new aspirant for the group and Rasul (Sayed Ahmad), a young refugee from Afghanistan. Marisa finds herself feeling responsible for the two of them which leads to a shift in her perspective.

Kriegerin is a heavy movie. Mostly because it’s just so very realistic. Nauseatingly so, in fact. Which is also what makes it really good.

There are two things that are especially striking about this film: The first one is definitely Alina Levshin and her performance. She is amazing. The rest of the cast is really good, too, there’s no doubt about it, but she outshines them all with ease.

The second thing was the utter realism with which Wnendt approaches the neo-Nazi scene. He portrays it unflinchingly and without judging, letting the harshness and wrongness of it speak for itself.

With those two things, the weaknesses of the movie are easily forgiven. But they’re still there. There isn’t much of a plot, actually, but the little there is, isn’t very concise. And the ending was just a classic [SPOILER] redemption equals death (warning, link leads to TV Tropes) [/SPOILER]. Did we really have to go there?

But put altogether, Kriegerin is an affective and effective film that weighs heavily on you and keeps working inside of you for some time afterwards.

Summarising: Recommended watching. But don’t expect to have any fun.