Karla | Dir: Christina Tournatzés | ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Based on a true story and set in Germany in 1962, Karla follows twelve‑year‑old Karla (Elise Krieps), who runs away from her family and into a police station, demanding to see a judge about her father’s sexual abuse.
Karla gets her wish, and Judge Dr Frederick Lamy (Rainer Bock) places her in a convent‑run home for girls while he attempts to gather enough information to prosecute. However, Karla does not want to relive the abuse, and there are no witnesses.
Both Lamy and his secretary Erika (Imogen Kogge) carry their own traumas from Germany’s Third Reich. They recognise that Karla needs to retain her dignity by not being forced to recount the persistent assaults by someone who was meant to protect her.
Erika, who was sent to Dachau Concentration Camp for loving another woman, reminds her boss that it only takes one person to stand up for the girl against the power of her father and the judiciary.
Flashbacks, like memories, are vague, and the film does not depict the attacks on Karla. Instead, she is silenced by the buzzing of insects as she explains, “I disappear, somehow. To a different place where everything is different” — much like the fictional world of Narnia — “and the girl it is happening to is not me.”
Like the opening scene in which Karla is drowning, the tension is almost suffocating as she stands her ground in the claustrophobic confines of Lamy’s office and, eventually, the courtroom.
This powerful drama tells the story of the first time a child succeeded in putting an abusive parent on trial in Germany. But it is more than a courtroom drama — it is about a young person taking control of her life and maintaining her right to silence.
Karla is part of the German Film Festival which starts on Thursday 7 May, screening at Palace Raine Square, Luna Leederville and Luna SX. See all the details of the festival.
Lezly Herbert
