I liked "Die Unruhige Nacht" (The Restless Night) a lot. The plot takes place during the retreat of the Germans from Stalingrad. A deserter, Fedor Baranowski (Hansjorg Felmy), is sentenced to die. A pastor, Brunner (Bernhard Wicki), speaks to the condemned man and learns that the man deserted to protect a Russian widow, Ljuba (Anneli Sauli), who was being threatened from both sides. We also learn the whole story of the life of Baranowski to find out that Ljuba was actually the first human being to love him, so he was fighting for something that was most precious to him. For me, the most important message of this film is that each of us is an individual human being who is accidentally thrown into the turmoil of war. I liked the acting and the portrayal of everyday life on the Eastern Front, including life in a Russian village. I have read that the film was praised by the critics too, and here is one sentence about what German critics in 1958 said about "The Restless Night" : this film takes a clearer stance against the war than German post-war cinema has ever done before.
