Teufelsbraten (2007)

Little Hildegard, the daughter of a factory worker and a cleaning woman, is called “Devil’s Brat” (Düvelsbrode) by her family, which also includes her grandparents and an aunt. Her serious, inquisitive nature and firm determination to learn to read and write make her seem like an outsider to her working-class, strictly Rhenish Catholic, dialect-speaking family—someone who does not belong in their world. Only her ailing grandfather understands her. He often reads to her and introduces her to the world of language, laying the foundation for her hunger for learning. At ten, Hildegard is admitted to middle school. There she learns standard German, takes an interest in literature, and makes friends from middle-class families. Her parents increasingly struggle to cope with her development; her language, table manners, and leisure interests provoke the aggression of the disadvantaged in her father in particular. He tries to hold his daughter back through physical and verbal abuse and convince her that, despite going to school, she cannot become anything “better” and will always remain what she is—a worker’s child. Hildegard feels torn between the two worlds; despite her growth into a future academic, she loves the family she came from. Her father loves her in his own way, too. When he wins the lottery, he grants all her wishes, takes her to the city to buy clothes, and gets her the braces she wants. At sixteen, Hildegard is offered the chance to attend a preparatory high school and earn her university-entrance qualification. Her parents refuse and force her to begin office training at the same factory where her father works. Under the supervision of a typical early-1960s secretarial “dragon,” she is supposed to learn filing, shorthand, and typing. When Hildegard fights back against her trainer’s bullying with small acts of sabotage and subtle pranks, she receives a formal reprimand, after which her distraught father beats her. The head of personnel, who summons Hildegard to his office, recognizes her exceptional education when she identifies a painting in his office as a work by Marc Chagall, and lets the matter drop. Unhappy about her prospects and, on top of that, abandoned by her first boyfriend, Hildegard seeks comfort in herbal liqueur and is in danger of becoming an alcoholic. Completely drunk, she lies on the banks of the Rhine. At a reunion, Hildegard’s tendency toward alcoholism becomes apparent, and her former German teacher confronts her about it. He recognizes the danger facing the talented but underchallenged girl and eventually succeeds, together with the parish priest and her primary-school teacher, in persuading Hildegard’s parents that their daughter belongs at a high school. When the local community agrees to cover the school fees, her father and mother are finally persuaded, and Hildegard is allowed to attend the preparatory course leading to the university-entrance qualification starting the following year.