Rosenstrasse (2003)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Theatrical Trailer Gallery-Photo Trailer-The Edukators, Since Otar Left, Agatha And The Storm Trailer-Facing Windows
Rating
Year Of Production	2003
Running Time	130:06 (Case: 136)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (78:38)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Margarethe von Trotta
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Katja Riemann Maria Schrader Martin Feifel Jürgen Vogel Jutta Lampe Doris Schade Fedja van Huêt Carola Regnier Svea Lohde Plien van Bennekom Jutta Wachowiak Romijn Conen Jan Decleir
Case	?
RPI	$34.95	Music	Loek Dikker

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	German Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Following the death of her husband, Ruth Weinstein (Jutta Lampe – Age 60/ Svea Lohde – Age 8) begins to withdraw from her family by renewing her Jewish faith and reflecting upon her past. Ruth’s changing behaviour and the sudden appearance of a strange guest, Rachel Rosenbauer (Carola Regnier), does not go unnoticed by her daughter, Hannah (Maria Schrader).

    Unable to make a connection with her mother, Hannah decides to confront Rachel to find out what is going on. Rachel reveals that she is Ruth’s cousin and that her parents emigrated to the US, from Germany, in 1933. Hannah also learns that her mother was sheltered by Lena Fischer (Katja Riemann - Age 33/ Doris Schade – Age 90) during the war and later sent to live in America with Rachel’s parents, where she was raised as one of their own.

    In order to find out more about her mother and her own past, Hannah travels to Berlin to interview Lena Fischer. Through a series of flashbacks, Lena retells the story about a group of German women who had the courage to protest against the Third Reich’s polices on racial purity.

    In 1943, at a time when Jews were being deported to concentration camps across Europe, those Jews who were married to Aryans were detained in factories located in Berlin. They would be rounded up at night, or on the way home from work, and detained without their loved ones being informed. Lena’s husband, Fabian (Martin Feifel), was one of the many Jews held captive in a factory located on Rosenstrasse (Rose Street).

    The story of the Holocaust has been retold many times and from many angles. What makes Rosenstrasse unique is the fact that it looks at this particular aspect of the Holocaust from a German perspective. Over the years the German people have shown that they are quite capable of analysing their past, through film. German classics like Das Boot and Stalingrad have now been joined by Rosenstrasse.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and it is 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer is clean with plenty of shadow detail. There is no low level noise.

    The subdued colour palette is well suited to New York City and wartime Berlin. Skin colours look natural.

    MPEG artefacts were kept to a minimum with just a small amount of posterization appearing in some of the darker scenes, such as the black clothing at 15:10 and the panning shot taken at 23:27. Aliasing is noticeable during the opening and closing credits, but thankfully this doesn’t affect the subtitle text. Film artefacts are almost non-existent.

    The English subtitles are embedded in the image, which means they can’t be turned off. This isn’t really a problem though, as the only audio track is German. The subtitles are well placed, clear and easy to read.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The default German Dolby Digital 2.0 (Surround) soundtrack is the only one available. Portions of the soundtrack contain English dialogue. 

    The dialogue is always clear and easy to understand. Audio sync didn’t appear to be a problem but, then again, I was preoccupied with reading the subtitles.

    The musical score by Loek Dikker was sufficient to support the movie but it did not reach any great heights. Rosenstrasse is a dialogue driven drama with minimal special effects, so a big booming musical score isn’t really called for.

    The surround channels are used effectively by the musical score and the limited sound effects.

    Rosenstrasse is not an action movie so it is only appropriate that the subwoofer be used sparingly.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu is preceded by the now common anti-piracy commercials; unfortunately they can’t be skipped through. There has been a lot of debate regarding the use of anti-piracy commercials recently and I believe they are acceptable, provided you can skip through them.

    The menu is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and it is 16x9 enhanced. It is not animated and contains no audio. The main menu offers the following selections; Play Feature, Special Features and Scene Selection, of which there are 15.

Theatrical Trailer

    The Theatrical Trailer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 (letterboxed) and is accompanied by Dolby Digital 2.0 (Surround) sound. The quality of the trailer is not the same as the movie; it is a little grainy and contains numerous film artefacts. Some pixelization and posterization is also evident.

Photo Gallery

    Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 (16x9 enhanced), the Photo Gallery includes 11 still images taken from the movie. The images are cropped to varying degrees and although they are generally of good quality, some contain a small amount of grain. 

More From Palace Films

    Trailers for the following foreign language movies; The Edukators, Since Otar Left, Agatha and the Storm and Facing Windows.

• Trailers for Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius, Bon Voyage, Super Size Me, The Company, Breakin' All the Rules, Whale Rider and The Winslow Boy.

    The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on;

• The Photo Gallery

• Trailers for The Edukators, Since Otar Left, Agatha and the Storm and Facing Windows.

    The Photo Gallery is a token effort at providing an extra, so there really is no difference between the Region 1 and Region 4 versions of this disc.

    The audio and video transfers are very good.

    The only shortcoming of this disc is its lack of real extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall