The Rose Garden ( Der Rosengarten )

The Rose Garden (DVD) (*)

~~$39.99~~ $33.97

Original Title: Der Rosengarten
Screened, competed or awarded at:
Golden Globes
Other Film Festival Awards

Language Selections:
Dutch ( Subtitles )
English ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )
English ( Dolby Digital 5.1 )

Product Origin/Format:
Netherlands ( PAL/Region 2 )

Running Time:
112 min

Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen (1.78:1)

Special Features:
Filmographies
Interactive Menu
Scene Access
Trailer(s)

Movie filmed in 1989 and produced in:
Austria ( Germany, Central Europe )
United States ( USA, Canada )

Directed By:
Fons Rademakers

Written By:
Fons Rademakers
Artur Brauner
Paul Hengge

Actors:
Liv Ullmann ..... Gabriele Freund
Maximilian Schell ..... Aaron Reichenbacher
Peter Fonda ..... Herbert Schluter
Jan Niklas ..... Passler
Katarina Lena Müller ..... Tina
Kurt Hübner ..... Arnold Krenn
Hanns Zischler ..... Professor Eckert
Gila Almagor ..... Ruth Levi
Ute Brankatsch ..... Journalist
Mareike Carrière ..... Ms. Moerbler
Dagmar Cassens ..... Dr. Hurth
Özay Fecht ..... Mrs. Marques
Deirdre Fitzpatrick ..... Helga
Ines Fridman ..... Rachel Reichenbach
Martin Hoppe ..... Young Krenn
Jean-Theo Jost ..... Court Officer
Peter Kortenbach ..... Emminger
Helmut Krauss ..... Taxi Driver
Marco Kröger ..... Harald
Evelyn Kussmann ..... Ruth Reichenbach
Friedhelm Lehmann ..... Professor Stauffer
Georg Marischka ..... Brinkmann
Rolf Mautz ..... SS Rottenfuehrer
Achim Ruppel ..... Klaus
Roland Schäfer ..... SS Doctor
Hans-Jürgen Schatz ..... Hrudek
Uwe Schawz ..... SS Unterscharfuehrer
Horst Scheel ..... Ward Physician
Andreas Schmidt ..... Vladimir
Helga Sloop ..... Old Lady
Nicolaus Sombart ..... Judge
Hans Martin Stier ..... Patient
Lutz Weidlich ..... Schubert
Barbara Werz ..... Frau Hasold

Synopsis:

The US/German co-production The Rose Garden is based on an actual court case. Cast against type, Maximillian Schell plays a shabby old man who, without warning, attacks well-to-do Kurt Hubner at the Frankfurt airport. Hubner presses charges, and it looks like an open-and-shut case. But public-defender Liv Ullmann, who has witnessed the incident, is urged by her daughter to defend the poverty-stricken Schell in court. During her investigation, Ullman learns that Schell is a concentration-camp survivor who lost his sister to a hideous Nazi medical experiment, and that Hubner was commandant at the camp where this and other atrocities occurred. Hubner has been able to legally maneuver his way out of Germany, and was en route to parts unknown when Schell recognized him and attacked him. Even though she is armed with this information, Ullmann cannot be certain that justice will be served to the correct man. The Rose Garden is a provocative, compelling piece, deliberately and methodically raising more questions than can possibly be answered.

Once again it is the suffering of children that is the central focus of one of Artur Brauner's productions. The killing of these children and the way in which the West German courts dealt with the case preoccupied Brauner so intensely that eventually he also shared in writing the screenplay. 'Any similarities to living or deceased persons are intentional,' appears in the closing credits. The commanding officer in charge of the subsidiary Hamburg branches of the Neuengamme concentration camp, to which the school at Bullenhuser Damme belonged, was pronounced permanently unable to stand trial by a Hamburg court in 1985; the investigation of charges against him had already been called off once before in 1967. The grounds for this decision were set out by the public prosecutor in Hamburg: 'The investigation did not yield the required degree of certainly that the children did not have to suffer excessively before they died. Thus, apart from the destruction of their lives no further harm was inflicted on them.' At the time the film was being made this former concentration camp commander was living unbothered by the authorities in Frankfurt am Main. Consequently, the film makes questions about the administration of justice and what is justice and injustice its main theme.

The aged Aaron Reichenbach knocks a man down who he recognizes as being a concentration camp doctor, the tormentor and murderer of his sister. Aaron is put on trial and convicted of assault, while the child murderer gets off unpunished. The central story of the film, the hanging of 20 Jewish children in a school in Hamburg a few days before the end of the war after being subjected to medical experiments, is a historical fact.

This product was added to our catalog on Tuesday 10 June, 2008.

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