I bought The Nasty Girl blind, not knowing either the film, nor director. It was that it had been Oscar nominated and the title and cover suggested something juicy and punky, that the Nasty Girl was indeed, far from being a Saint.But she is, of sorts. This, my second viewing allowed me to see deeper into the film's structure and message. Lena Stolze, as Sonja, the girl, then a woman who starts out thinking up a subject for her school essay assignment. Teachers always like to patronise their pupils when they show enthusiasm and initiative and so, her project is blessed and praised. At first.As her task becomes a full-time passion and as she uncovers possible cover ups as to who in the town were Nazis and how far their crimes went, those doors to her, previously so open, are now closed. Director Michael Verhoeven (whose name sounds Dutch but he was born in Berlin) employs a necessary offbeat and humorous approach, sometimes stylised sets, with back-projected interiors pasted on. There's an air of flippancy throughout and the briskness of the narrative means that we don't ponder too much on a single point before moving on.The slamming doors become sticks of dynamite and death-threats, which we cannot take that seriously due to semi-comic take on it all. Court cases come up, are won, lost and won again. Inhabitant's opinions change after an accident involving the judge picking pears causes the final case to collapse.You, like me, may find that there are unanswered questions and ultimately, whilst the journey was fun for most of its time, what really was the point? What did she prove, apart from the fact that she was able to change opinion.Anyway, a nice little film, not too long and a bit different and also, really quite German.

The thrust of the movie, as I saw it, was the propensity of a society, any society, to conveniently 'forget' the details of its involvement with nefarious deeds carried out in its name. Much as the vast majority of American westerns tend to gloss over the true level of barbarism we so-called civilized members of society visited upon the 'heathen' Indians, the German town in question conveniently 'forgot' its level of involvement with the atrocities of the Nazi regime. Mädchen's true 'sin' was of revisiting the Nazi era and detailing the involvement of many of the town's leading lights with that regime and its atrocities.In toto, this film asks disturbing questions about society (any society) and its willingness to justify or simply forget 'inconvenient' truths and realities.

Sonja (Lena Stolze) seems like any ordinary person. That is, until she has to research her town's history for a project. In the process, she discovers that her town was heavily involved in the Third Reich. Then, everyone in town not only turns against her, but tries in every possible way to silence her.Much like another West German film ("The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum"), "The Nasty Girl" shows a woman used as a scapegoat for something that was society's fault (it makes sense for German movies to deal with that; it's exactly what the Third Reich was all about). Another one of Germany's solid masterpieces.Watching this movie, I couldn't help but wonder what sorts of secrets any place, anywhere on Earth, carries.

Das Madchen Schreckliche (The Nasty Girl) is about high school student girl who write an essay of her town during War World II. She gets a violent opposition for search the truth in her essay. The film is based on a true story. I remember seeing the woman on 60 Minutes a couple years ago talking about her life that the film is based. The performances in the movie was great but the ending was weak.