Frauenstation (1977)

Told in episodic form, the film presents everyday stories from a clinic’s gynecology department, intertwined with the private and marital problems of its two male protagonists: a senior physician and his superior, the chief physician. Among the patients who force both doctors to make important decisions is a young woman with cancer, who must choose between undergoing treatment and thereby endangering her child’s life, or putting the child’s welfare first. In Angelika Schneider’s case, who has come accompanied by her mother, the question is not merely “child or no child.” Her own life is in immediate, extreme danger: the 15-year-old is pregnant and, in desperation, has tried to abort the fetus herself with a needle. Since then, she has been bleeding heavily from the lower abdomen. Chief physician Professor Overhoff and his senior physician, Dr. Schumann, are also troubled by private problems. Overhoff has been through a traumatic experience: his wife died of a pulmonary embolism while giving birth to their second child. He blames himself in part. Now, as a single father, Overhoff must care for his adolescent daughter Eva and an infant. Schumann, meanwhile, is married to a beautiful young woman who is just as demanding as she is somewhat overwrought, and about 20 years younger than him. She tends to behave and act in an affected, exaggerated manner. Claudia Schumann even causes disruption at the hospital, putting a strain on Schumann’s relationship with his boss. She accuses Professor Overhoff of being responsible for his wife’s death because he got her pregnant at an advanced age. This tragic event leads Claudia Schumann, fearing that the same thing could happen to her as happened to Mrs. Overhoff, to decide that she, too, does not want a child—which in turn creates tension with her husband. Her neuroses go so far that she hides and hoards medication, including birth control pills, in her doll collection. When Eva Overhoff discovers this, she immediately tells her father, who in turn informs his senior physician. Schumann’s attempt to speak reasonably with his wife fails. When Claudia assumes that her husband, who has meanwhile been having an affair with the attractive nurse from the neonatal ward, has thrown her cycle off and that she has therefore become pregnant after all, she attempts suicide by taking sleeping pills.