Mädchen in Uniform (1931)

Titles in English-speaking countries: Maedchen in Uniform, Girls in Uniform, Maidens in Uniform.

A girl who has lost her mother is sent to a boarding school. Like most girls in there, she falls in love with Miss von Bernburg, a teacher. This causes troubles for both of them.

Exquisite recreation of life in a boarding school in the early 20th century. Although the plot feels like a bowdlerization (and reportedly it is), it is sufficiently coherent to allow a feel of the teenage angst it is supposed to convey. It is interesting to analyse the film by present moral and legal standards. In a modern-day school Miss Bernburg would probably be eventually denounced for sexual abuse of minors and would certainly be fired and probably sued. But in the 30s it seems that mouth-kissing between women had a very contingent status. In here, it is perfectly ambiguous: it points simultaneously toward simple affection and toward eroticism (if there were no such ambiguity the film would make little sense); in Morocco there is a similar ambiguity, because 'Jolly' is performing while dressed as a man -- but that scene bears little relation to the rest of the plot, in my opinion (although an anonymous reviewer on TV Guide has pointed out the interesting contrast between 'Jolly''s virile manners -- which, however, I don't think exists outside of that cabaret performance -- and 'Brown''s effeminate ones); on the other hand, in Min and Bill, two women kiss on the mouth during a wedding ceremony and there is not a hint of anything erotic. Mädchen in Uniform is a very rewarding aesthetic experience. Number 3 in Dale Thomajan's Top Ten of 1931.

Rating: 77
(Number 4 in my list of favorites of 1931.)