Hyde Park Pick: From Hilde, With Love
Our film of the week, recommended by our Head of Cinema, Wendy.
Wendy Cook
Drawing on the compelling real-life case of Hilde and Hans Coppi, From Hilde, With Love, follows the quiet and deeply intelligent Hilde as she gradually gets involved with a small resistance group in 1940s Berlin.
The film carefully and respectfully tells Hilde’s story, capturing moments of self-discovery and self-doubt, intertwined with the intoxicating summer haze of falling in love.
The wisdom in how director Andreas Dresen’s chooses to play with time to tell Hilde and her fellow Red Orchestra members story is critical. In hopping back and forth between Hilde’s world pre and post arrest, it’s clear that this is a film about a political prisoner. The time the filmmakers give us to get to know Hilde as an individual, in the hands of a different storyteller might undermine the significance or consequences of her actions. But, here, they simply help to sketch out the shape and detail of an amazing woman too easily lost in the furrows of time. And, in doing so, they also celebrate the potential every human has to commit acts of bravery and conscience.
To speak to the potential and ease with which we might be able to find an affinity with Hilde shouldn’t in any way undermine the achievements of the real Hilde Coppi. One of the reasons I loved the film was that it allowed me to walk out of the cinema with another hero to hang on my mental wall and there is such a pleasure in seeing that wall become so laden alongside a sadness that there is such need.
From Hilde, With Love is showing daily at HPPH from Friday 27th June. You can book tickets here.
