Viator Veritatis This unlikely movie is a concentrate of all the stereotypes the controlled medias daily feed to their public. Here are some of the most preposterous suggestions it attempts to hammer into the viewer's mind: - The German far-right scene is entirely composed of wild, loud, unreasoning skinheads only suited at getting drunk and exercise mindless violence. Just on the contrary, most neonazi militants are perfectly articulate persons with job and family, apt to argument their political views.Only people with an unbalanced familiar background and childhood problems enter the right scene. This idea is so dull that I won't even expend words to counteract it.By contrast refugees are pleasant, quiet, balanced persons who only come to Europe to be reunited with their family. I once lived two months close to a camp full of this... humanity, and I heartily recommend such an experience to anybody approaching this outrageous movie. As a side remainder and according to official (if well-hidden) statistics, 90 % of drug dealing in Germany is managed by immigrants.The conclusion is one of the movie's most weird moments. I won't spoil it for you, but it serves the director's intent in impressing one more cracked stereotype: people in the right scene live and die by futile, pointless violence.In the final grotesquerie, the dying protagonist devotes her final words to explain how wonderful democracy is. Not only the idea is so trite, but hey - everybody expects people suddenly shot in the abdomen to sputter a lecture of regime's political humbug.The movie is technically well-done and enriched by the two female protagonists' excellent acting. Regimes lavish their best efforts on means of propaganda like this one. And that's what the film is: a blatant, straightforward piece of political indoctrination aimed at slandering the Establishment's political opponents. This movie is pretty everything Western free-thought cant reviles... as long as it is performed by its opponents.

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "Kriegerin" (German term for a female warrior) is a 4-year-old 105-minute movie written and directed by David Wnendt. The best way to see this is not as a film which will tell you accurately about life as a Nazi or life in a Nazi community, but as a character study of two females and what factors caused them to end up in this company of right-wing extremists. It has a lot to do with the behavior from their parents including emotional and physical (the cigarette scene) abuse by those who are supposed to protect them and help them finding their place in life. The way these two girls developed during the movie makes it obvious that they do not necessarily believe in the ideal of Nazis, but their acting in accordance with them is really more a consequence of wanting to belong somewhere and being accepted the way they are. However, quite ironically, they are changing in order to be accepted and they willingly do so. I am not really sure if I found Levshin's or Haase's character more interesting. However, it is obvious that Levshin's character sees parallels to herself in Haase's character. And as she becomes more tolerant (also thanks to the boy), she tries to be a helping hand to Haase's character and maybe prevent her from making the same mistakes she did.This was the big breakthrough film for Ukrainian-born Alina Levshin. She won a German Film Award for it and is since considered among the top actresses of her generation on the German market. And it was also one of Haase's breakthrough films. David Wnendt won a German Film Award as well for his screenplay and the film itself was honored as the third best movie of the year. Wnendt went on to direct the heavily-discussed "Feuchtgebiete" (based on Charlotte Roche's novel) after that, an in my opinion terrible film that couldn't be more different from "Kriegerin". Still, somehow I expected more from "Kriergerin". I really do not believe the screenplay is that good. It's almost entirely Levshin's performance which holds this film so well together. At times, especially at the very final scene near the sea this film could have done with tome more subtlety in my opinion. But Wnendt went for over-the-top showiness instead sadly. Also, I would have preferred an approach which not only displays the women in the Nazi community as victims or as somewhat good people. Maybe one of the guys helping the girls would have been nice as well. It's almost sexist. With some slight alterations, this could have been an actually great film and not only a decent one. Still, all in all, I recommend watching it.

jjr4 There are movies worth seeing and movies which need to be seen. This is both. It's a brilliant piece of acting by the whole cast, with a stellar performance from Alina levshin, and an understated but efficient directing from David Wnendt. But it is also a frighteningly cold and accurate view of neo nazism. The routine violence and hate carried by these young individuals echoes of all the fanaticism that surrounds us today. It is a very disturbing depiction of how society is step by step going to waste, turning back to tribal models.Despite the fact that the movie gets watched without any slowing down or loss of interest, even if it can make one feel a little voyeuristic at times, this is no easy viewing, don't expect to come out of the theater with anything resembling a smile on your face. But at lest you'll be sure to have food for thought and both a new director/writer and actress whose careers you'll want to keep following.

ek-hlewagastir Kriegerin/Combat Girls is the last film of a kind that has become one of Germany's finest exports. I am thinking of films like "Das Experiment" and "Die Welle" which, directly or indirectly, investigate what lies behind a dictatorship like Nazism and the dangers of falling into one again, which sometimes may seem far away. With this film, this time we are taken very close to the reality of a small (supposedly East) German town where far-right extremists rule the place and intimidate migrants. The point of view is entirely coincident with the main character, Marisa (award-winner Ukrainian-born Alina Levshin), who plays the passionate girlfriend of one of the gang's most violent and dangerous subjects. Her acting is amazing and, as already stated by another reviewer, it brings the film to a totally different level giving it the effectiveness of a documentary. The film is essentially about a girl who seems to know very well what she wants (to the extent that her whole body is covered in tattoos which are also political statements), while in fact some events will force her to reconsider not only her set of values, but also a relationship with a man whose deep love quickly turns into the deepest hate. On the background, there is a side story about Marisa's dying Nazi grandfather. She doesn't want to accept that he had been violent to her own wife before she was born, and that relates directly to the violence she in turn has chosen to surround herself with. A 15 years old seeking to be accepted into the gang is also dragged into this spiral of hate and violence - a consequence of her dominating father - until she understand what that really means. The third girl of the gang is always in the background, she's very passive and hardly talks and shows a melancholy which turns out to be a result of life's injustice. This is in my opinion the best German film since Gegen die Wand/Head On. Both educational and a piece of -literally- screaming art. A must see!