Zuflucht

On location. There are a surprising number of exterior shots at original locations to be found in Carl Froelich’s ZUFLUCHT: groups of allotment gardens, market halls, construction sites, working class districts on the one hand, the bourgeois district of Grunewald on the other. Manufacturer’s son Martin (Franz Lederer in his film debut) moves between these two poles, returning to Berlin broken and penniless after years in the Soviet Union. His affluent family don’t want anything to do with their revolutionary son and brother. He eventually finds a roof over his head and eventually love too with the equally impoverished market seller Hanne (Henny Porten). Close to reality and relatively unadorned, the film is dominated by the acting of Henny Porten, one of the 1910s and 1920s’ most popular actresses, who plays the role of the self-renouncing, motherly lover familiar from many of her other films (Milena Gregor)