Angry Harvest (German: "Bittere Ernte") is a 1985 film from West Germany directed by Agnieszka Holland.
The setting is early 1943 (reference is made to the German surrender at Stalingrad), in that part of the province of Silesia that was a part of Poland but was annexed by the Germans when they conquered Poland in 1939. Leon Wolny (Armin Mueller-Stahl) is a relatively prosperous farmer who lives alone. One day a train is passing nearby taking Austrian Jews to the death camps (probably Auschwitz). A husband, wife, and their daughter manage to knock a hole in the walls of the cattle car and jump, but they wind up scattered in the woods. The mother, Rosa Eckart, is stumbling through the woods when she runs into Leon, who takes her home.
Leon hides Rosa in his basement, giving her food and shelter. However, he is also a lonely man, and a weak one. He starts to pressure Rosa, and soon they are in a sexual relationship—and Leon does not tell her that her husband is still alive and free in the woods.
Tropes:
- The Cavalry Arrives Late: Rosa's husband arrives, asking about her, just minutes after she killed herself downstairs. (As Leon is burying her in the basement, the sound of the Red Army marching through in triumph can be heard outside.)
- Cigarette of Anxiety: Rosa starts smoking as the stress of being cooped up in the basement gets to her. It's a lot more dangerous than the usual cigarette of anxiety because the smoke could alert others to her presence.
- Confessional: Leon is Catholic. He goes to confessional and tells the priest of his sins, which include masturbation (a Catholic no-no) as well as profiting from the desperation of local Jews by purchasing their belongings at absurdly low prices.
- Day Hurts Dark-Adjusted Eyes: Rosa has her eyes squeezed shut when Leon finally takes Rosa outside, after she's been in the basement for a year and a half (there's a reference to Finland dropping out of the war in September 1944).
- Dirty Coward: Leon agrees to take a package into German-occupied Poland but chickens out. Instead he gives the package to Pauline, who agrees to take it mainly because she is besotted with him. She gets killed.
- Downer Ending: Rosa kills herself, unable to face leaving Leon's farm.
- Dramatic Irony: The film ends with a letter from Mr. Rubin's daughter Tuva, thanking him for the $1000 (in return for the orchard) that allowed her to emigrate to America with Eckart (Rosa's husband). She calls him a good person. This is after the viewer knows that Leon is a rapist who more or less held Rosa captive and drove her to suicide.
- Driven to Suicide: Rather than leave Leon's basement for an uncertain future, Rosa kills herself.
- Dude, She's Like in a Coma: Leon kisses and caresses a feverish, semi-conscious Rosa. Things get worse from there.
- Final Solution: The genocide of European Jews. In bed, Rosa tells Leon how she's lost everyone one at a time, her husband and daughter being the last, and now she's dead inside.
- Internal Monologue: Heard briefly from Rosa who wonders "My God, how many are here," when she hears some of Leon's servants sneaking around the kitchen, robbing him.
- La Résistance: A member of the Polish underground contacts Leon and gets him to agree to carry a package across the border to what's left of Poland. Leon, who is basically a coward, winds up handing the package off to Pauline and she gets killed.
- Les Collaborateurs: Leon's friend Maslanko, who has not been content with merely stripping Jews of their possessions at fire sale prices—he has been collaborating with the Germans and turning Jews in. He is killed by La Résistance.
- Love Martyr: Rosa is giving the Thousand-Yard Stare when Leon first has sex with her, and at one point later she explicitly states the truth, that he is hiding her so that he can have sex with her whenever she wants. But she also clearly forms an emotional attachment to him, driven by loneliness and desperation after over a year and a half living in his basement.
- Meet Cute: A dark example. Leon is in the forest chopping wood when he catches Rosa stealing his lunch. She runs away from him until she faints, after which he takes her back to the farm house.
- Oblivious to Love: Leon allows his baser impulses to take him to a dark place with regards to Rosa, but he either is oblivious to or is ignoring his neighbor Pauline, who obviously is in love with him.
- Protagonist Journey to Villain: Leon. He starts out doing the right thing, but his lust and weakness lead him to hold Rosa as a virtual sex slave. That's bad enough, but once he finds a younger, sexier girlfriend (he's matched up with a widow's daughter), he casts her aside. Rosa kills herself.
- Questionable Consent: Leon does unambiguously try to rape Rosa once, but the arrival of some visitors forces him to break off as she runs back to the cellar. Afterwards, they are in a sexual relationship that is "consensual", sort of. But the fact that he is hiding her from the Nazis makes it more like she is giving him sex in return for shelter.
- Toplessness from the Back: Seen from Rosa as Leon is getting her out of her filthy, soaked clothes. Although he doesn't do anything inappropriate at that particular moment, it foreshadows the dark turn their relationship will take.
- Trust Password: Leon is given a specific question-and-answer phrase that will be how he and the La Résistance guy will recognize each other. After he palms the package off on the unfortunate Pauline he has to teach her the phrases.
- Whatever Happened to the Mouse?: The fate of Rosa's daughter, who jumped from the cattle car along with her father and Rosa, is not mentioned. Although since she apparently got separated from both her parents and was left alone in the woods it doesn't really need to be mentioned.
