User Reviews

Without being a twin, one can not imagine the inner trauma involved when separated from a twin sibling in harrowing circumstances. This is what happens to two little six year old girls in 1920s Germany at the beginning of Twin Sisters. Lotte, although quite ill, is the luckier of the two, as she is taken in by distant family in the Netherlands, where she is lovingly nursed back to health. Anna, on the other hand, finds herself claimed by a harsh uncle and aunt to live and work on their farm, where punishing treatment makes her existence miserable. Although in vastly different settings, both sisters are actively discouraged from contacting each other by letter, 'for their own good', we are told. Mercifully, Anna is eventually rescued from her cruel guardians and put into a school - an experience she has only been able to dream of up to that time. We follow the two sisters as they mature, including the long-awaited first reunion, which is a happy moment. With the advent of World War II, however, they find themselves in opposite camps. Romantic attachments bring things to breaking point, with memories of the joyful reunion all but forgotten. Little things, like a handkerchief embroidered (rather poorly) by their mother play a healing role, and the film ends with the twins still struggling for that final reconciliation in old age. Twin Sisters provides a valuable insight into the effect that national conflict can have on personal relationships. It opens with a delightful musical score, and gives us some pleasant European scenery from Netherlands and Luxembourg, where the film was shot. 7.5 out of 10 from me.

This film is kind of soap opera. There's good acting and a good story, but there's something important missing. The film tells about twin sisters that love each other deeply, separated by chance and war, brought up in different countries that suddenly find themselves on opposing sides of a battling world. Their emotional distance grows on and on. At the end of the war (second world war), there's so much bitterness that their reconciliation seems difficult. This story as you see, can be rendered in a very interesting way, but as I said before, there's something important missing. The relationship between the sisters, as portrayed in the film, lacks warmth. For instance, their first meeting in the train station, after so many years of separation, could be really moving. It isn't, it's just average. For real emotion in acting see Penelope Cruz in "Non ti Muovere". And the relationship between Lotte and the Jewish pianist looks like a TV commercial selling whisky or cars. It's not convincing at all as a deep love relationship. Don't get me wrong. The acting is generally good but what about the chemistry? Still I think that this is a good film, but it could have been so much better! Nadja Uhl (playing young Anna) gives the better performance of the film. She's more intense and if she finds a talented director(for instance, Almodovar) she'll be able to shine.

Twin Sisters carries so much promise to be a one of the great Holocaust-related movie pieces, while being unique in that it touches none of the gory parts of war but with enough sentimental value and focus on the consequences of complicated family relationships.

However I was not impressed - it looked like an average movie to me in the end because it lacked a lot of kick that I expected but did not materialize, given the weight of the subjects matter.

One of the major flaws - I was quite disappointed that the (adult) sisters lacked the enthusiasm or chemistry in certain very critical scenes. Not knowing each other for so long was not a good enough excuse for this flaw, because the sisters apparently had better chemistry with their male partners during their own first encounters? The arc involving the old version of the sisters looked like a mere filler to me as I believe the movie chose to detract focus on the present and dwell more in the past, a big mistake, as they could have demonstrated more via a longer last-chance reconciliation meeting.

This was an obvious contrast to the child versions of the sisters who were better actors in my opinion, as the kid actors had demonstrated strong raw emotions and worries towards each other characters despite being miles apart, and that was when the movie was at its best (looked like a 4.5 star at that point).

Two twin sisters Lothe and Anna, born in prewar Germany (1920) are separated at the age of eight when there last parent and father dies. Because the Dutch and German relatives "themselves are already at war", both the children grow up in a totally different environment, different language, -parents, -family and -friends. The one's poisoned by the anti-, the other by the pro German news and propaganda, we watch these beautiful children grow and both their life's being build on what they go through, what they see, what they hear and there conclusions about that. "Accidentilly" they finally meet on "neutral ground" the flashbacks make you love them both and understand both the women and the choices they've made. As older woman, Anna says it beautifully simple "if we as sisters cannot solve this problem, who can?" and as she is dying to hear her sisters forgiveness, she gets both.

A film which shows us that judging the other side is not as easy as it might seem.

DE TWEELING (TWIN SISTERS), based on the highly successful novel by Tessa de Loo and adapted brilliantly for the screen by Marieke van der Pol, is assuredly one of the most touching films to date about the strength of family bonds decimated by the horrors of WW II. Director Ben Sombogaart follows Dutch writer de Loo's lead in making this story about the differing fates of twin girls separated at the death of their parents more of a parallel tale than capitalizing on the grim reality of Hitler's influence. The result is a cinematically magnificent, gently hued verismo style of film that succeeds even more in its impact than if it were constantly doused in the dark side of its subject.

Germany 1920. Lotte Bamberg (played by three actresses though a long life - child Julia Koopmans, young woman Thekla Reuten and aged woman Ellen Vogel) and Anna Bamberg (child Sina Richardt, young woman Nadja Uhl and aged woman Gudrun Okras) are inseparable twins at age six, living life to its fullest until suddenly both parents are gone and they are split up: the consumptive Lotte goes to live with her upper class Dutch aunt in Holland and the healthy Anna remains in Germany with her poor uncle on a pig farm. Lotte lives a life of privilege, recovers form tuberculosis, studies German at University and sings Schumann ('Frauen Lieben und Leben' appropriately!) accompanied by her soon to be husband David (Jeroen Spitzenberger) who happens to be Jewish. As the war threatens Hitler's invasion on Holland, David is sent to Auschwitz and brokenhearted Lotte marries David's kind brother and has a child. Meanwhile Anna leads an abused life on the poor and filthy farm, is beaten by her heinous uncle when she begins dating a young handsome Austrian Martin (Roman Knizka) and runs away to work as a maid. Martin believes in Socialism and joins Hitler's army, and is killed.

Throughout the years of separation each twin writes to the other but their guardians for varying reasons never mail the letters. Anna finally finds Lotte and they have a brief time together in Lotte's elegant surroundings. But when Anna observes German dinner guests berating Jews she flees. The two sisters find it difficult to separate the losses of their husbands: Lotte blames Anna's siding with the Nazis as a cause of David's death. Anna defends Martin's role as one of idealism that had nothing to do with the genocide of the Jews. They part, seemingly to never meet again. But as old women bedraggled Anna seeks out the elegant Lotte and the two come to understand their opposite opinions of what the war did to destroy their happiness.

The entire cast is so fine that it is difficult to single any one actor out for distinction: this is truly ensemble acting. Never pushing the story to the edge of saccharine or excess of war violence, director Sombogaart keeps his focus on the dialogue between the sisters central, embroidered with the opposing dichotomies of class and political commitment visceral but understated. The cinematography of Piotr Kukla and the radiant musical score by Fons Merkies are astonishingly effective. This is one of the powerful movies about the Holocaust from an entirely different stance - one that grabs you by the heart and holds on for the 135 minutes of the film...and beyond. In Dutch, German and English with subtitles. Very Highly Recommended. Grady Harp