10/10
Refugees from WW2 Austria, and their difficult return. A masterpiece.
5 January 2005
This is the final film of a three-part series that follows the protagonists as they escape from Austria as Hitler invades, find unreliable shelter in France, flee to New Jersey, where they pass most of the wartime period, then return to Vienna as part of the American occupying forces. Politically, this third film is crucial, since it shows, as if by inadvertence, the re-installation of remnants of the former fascist power, with its anti-Jewish policies, in the post-war Austrian state.

The series as a whole, entitled "Wohin und Zuruck", is known in English by the title of the third film, "Welcome in Vienna". The first film flawlessly displays the roots of French collaboration. The second episode, called "Santa Fe", is set in New Jersey, but is named for the land they dream of inhabiting, in the American west. The score, in sostenato, is the haunting largo of the Schubert quintet .

These are very important films, which richly deserve to be released in DVD format.
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