Customer Reviews

Christabel [VHS]

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4 star:		(1)
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The story of Christabel Bielenberg -- a British woman, married to a German official, who lived in Germany throughout the Second World War -- offers a unique, factual perspective on the rise of fascism within Germany and its daily attrition of human values and dignity. The story is compelling -- whatever minor flaws may have arisen in transfering it to the screen are relatively trivial. Both in Bielenberg's book ("The Past Is Myself") and in the video, the eerie, unexpected arrival of a Latvian SS officer in Bielenberg's train compartment while she is asleep and his complulsion to recount his own ghastly history is chilling and memorable, and but one of a series of vignettes from within that give greater insight into the period. The book and video were as valuable in developing an understanding of these aspects of World War II as Vera Brittain's memoir, "Testament of Youth" was in conveying a similar understanding of personal tragedy during the First World War. Very highly recommended.

I am a direct decendant of Peter and Christabel Bielenberg and I was absolutely facinated when I watched this video. I beleive it was a almost perfect portrail of Christabel and her experiances as a German in the war. I also think that if you had not read the book "I once was a German" by Christabel Bielenberg you would have been lost several times in the film. But overall it was a great experiance.

CHRISTABEL (TV-UK-1988) - Elizabeth Hurley, Stephen Dillane
Uniformly excellent, thought-provoking BBC-TV movie based on Christabel Burton Bielenberg's autobiography chronicles her marriage just prior to WWII to a German national and relocation to first Berlin and then a home in the Black Forest.

In a study of contrasts and just one stark scene of many, a friend of English-born Christabel (a niece of two Lords) and her husband Peter has been convicted in a failed 1944 assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler. As he hangs just two feet off the floor, conscious and slowly suffocating from a piano wire garrotte, there's a shift to a children's church choir singing "Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht" as Christabel looks on.

Several Allied carpet bomb raids are given a civilian view, as terrified Berliners huddle together -sometimes unprotected- while clusters of eight explosive devices fall. "Christabel" is one of the most effective films in portraying such horrors. Surviving losers in war must go on with their lives despite poverty, hunger, homelessness and widespead destruction. Here, we expereince that reality also.

This remarkable motion picture eschews politics to concentrate on the lives of PEOPLE, specifically non-combatants, often the most fragile and first to be lost during all-out war.


As of 10/09, the uncut version of "Christabel" was only available on DVD in MILL CREEK ENTERTAINMENT's BOX OFFICE GOLD 50 Movie Pack.

Being unfamiliar with the autobiography of Christabel Bielenberg, it's hard to know whether to blame her or the adaptation by Dennis Potter for this BBC miniseries. However equally responsible is director Adrian Shergold ... Although Potter has otherwise stretched the boundaries of naturalism, here he presents material on the level of a Harlequin Barbara Cartland, but without even her passion, and his repeated use of Christabel's name wears very thin. Married to a German during WW2, Christabel represents the gallantry of England and her moral superiority over the Germans. Whilst it is known that there were some Germans who did not support Hitler's Nazis, Potter uses this to show that the Germans who did were imbeciles, making the defeat of the Nazis inevitable. This glaringly ignores the fact that the British would have been unable to withstand Hitler's advances without the assistance of the Americans, and also belittles the power that the Nazis had. The falseness of this production begins with the English accents of the supposed Germans, and continues with SA bullies in 1938, which is historically inaccurate since the SA were disbanded in 1934. Being English the acting here is impossibly arch and full of eternal pauses, though the steely stare of determination of Elizabeth Hurley's Christabel is a welcome relief from the hesitancy of her husband, Stephen Dillane. The exception to all this restraint is Nigel Le Vaillant as Dillane's friend, who yells (so we know he's foolhardy) and suffers for it later. Dillane and LeVallant hold jobs in the German Foreign Office, which seems ludicrously casual and lacking in SS officers, considering that Europe is being invaded all over the place, at the time. It is the Le Vallant connection which lands Dillane in Ravensbruck concentration camp, for Christabel to beg for his release. The Klaus von Stauffenberg attempted assassination of Hitler idea is copied here, but where the real perpetrators were immediately executed, Dillane being sent to Ravensbruck for his involvement clues us into yet another level of fantasy. Shergold never shows us the assassination attempt, which is a pity, and Dillane's involvement is never revealed. Other goofs include Dillane's brother as a German pilot taking photos of Christabel's English estate during wartime, Christabel's friends secretly listening to the BBC for the sounds of England which plays American swing, a farewell note by Jews Christabel hides in her house with a quote from the Bible, and an SS officer confessing the killing of Jews to Christabel - a civilian - just so we can hate them more. (The latter gets a double spin when the officer is a Latvian who joined the SS when promised revenge for persecution from the previous Russian invaders of Latvia). Potter occasionally comes up with some witticisms - Churchill is said to "fart rhetoric", and Christabel's English father criticises her German-speaking children with "I don't want to dislocate my jaw trying to jabber the way they do". Shergold gives us a striking image of a Nazi flag enveloping Christabel's car, and when a song I'm Following You is used over the burning of a synagogue to suggest Crystal Night, it is a solitary reminder of Potter's ironic use of songs in Pennies from Heaven. It's hard to reconcile the young moon-faced ingenue Hurley with her modern day vamp persona. Her transformation is a little like that undertaken by Princess Diana, where age and an increased bank account provide increased glamour. Hurley once stated that she resembles her former beau Hugh Grant, and this is evident here. Although she isn't required to display any great acting ability beside looking pretty, her best scene is where she lies to the head of Ravensbruck for Dillane, even when the lie is in accordance with the assumption that the German is gullible enough to be deceived. But her return to a supposed war-torn Berlin, where she walks casually and undisturbed over rubble is a return to the Shergold/Potter/Bielenberg land of make believe.