Madchen in Uniform, or Maidens in Uniform, tells the story of a motherless girl enrolled a strict, austere all-girl boarding school by her aunt. There, she is welcomed into the close-knit community of girls struggling to retain their individuality in the stifling school and develops an obsessive love for her teacher and dorm supervisor, Fraulein von Bernburg.
On the surface, Madchen in Uniform is a pretty standard 1930s weepy marketed toward teenage girls. Yeah, there's lesbianism (the first example of it in film, in fact), but such attachments were often considered a matter-of-course in girls' schools of the time. Love between girls was something harmless and inconsequential, a fake love that would fade after graduation. That aspect of the story doesn't seem to ever have been very controversial.
What did make it controversial for a while was what it is under the sapphic surface - an allegory on fascism. After the Nazi party gained power, the film was banned and an attempt was made to destroy all copies of it. Obviously, they failed, and Madchen in Uniform remains a cult classic today.
I was more interested in the view the film has on female sexuality. The school, like society, attempts to repress the girls, to make them both emotionless and desireless, but fails utterly. They giggle over beefcake magazines in the dorms. They smuggle smutty books. They admire each other's figures in the dressing room. The film is full of erotic imagery in chaste situations.
But you don't need to be an analysis fanatic to enjoy Madchen in Uniform. It's a timeless story of unrequited love, friendship, and coping with oppression.
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