I love this movie so much

Redundant and unnecessary.

Absolutely Fantastic

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Die Legende von Paul und Paula captures the spirit of the changes and upheavals of the late 1960ies / early 1970ies upheaval like no other film. Outstanding acting and the on-screen chemistry between Angelica Domröse and Winfried Glatzeder (basically they're the Brangelina of early 1970ies East Germany) make up for the movie's slow and somewhat inane first third, and some dated flourishes such as the Sergeant Pepper-style scene on the barge. The movie manages to convey that the GDR wasn't the worker's paradise many like to remember it as, without ever being in-your-face type of critical.Unlike some reviewers have hinted, the movie was never banned in the GDR, although it can't have been popular with the party big whigs. In fact it was even the most popular homegrown movie on the other side of the wall.

Paul and Paula go through life picking the wrong partners until they happen to hook up with each other and the legend begins. Low-budget German film has the look of a cheesy porno movie. The script is pretty standard boy-meets-girl story. The acting by Domrose (as Paula, who seems to work in an amazingly busy grocery store or something and has wild mood swings) and Glatzeder (as the goofy Paul) is not bad, considering the clichéd characters they are playing. The direction is amateurish, with incongruous shots of buildings being demolished thrown in. The soundtrack is filled with bad German pop songs, although it is interesting that they get the lyrics to rhyme even after translating to English.

"Die Legende von Paul und Paula" (1973), co-written and directed by Heiner Carow, is a famous film in Germany. The story seems tame enough now--a young woman is dissatisfied with her life and takes active steps to improve it.Angelica Domröse plays Paula, a single mother who has a dead-end job and no social life. Winfried Glatzeder portrays Paul, who is unhappily married and is drawn to the free-spirited Paula. (Glatzeder has been called East Germany's Jean-Paul Belmondo. He didn't look much like Belmondo, and wouldn't have struck me as leading man material. However, I don't know enough about East German cinema to be aware of his competition.)I've been told that the reason for this film's popularity in East Germany was because it contained subtle criticism of the regime, as well as depicting some PG-13 sex. I know East German films were subject to strict censorship, and, as in any similar regime, directors inserted criticisms in ways that were necessarily very indirect and symbolic.The problem is that this movie only works if you can think of how you would have viewed it in East Berlin in 1973. I don't believe it's strong enough to succeed on its own merits in 2006.

The Legend of Paul and Paula seems simple yet not boring. However, the film has profound ideas to tell – gender roles, social inequality and escapism. I like the film's way portraying of everyday life in East Berlin. You can almost see and feel the city. The love story between a passionate single mother and a complacent, married bureaucrat is not your typical Hollywood movie. The film also has a psychedelic and hippie feel. The soundtrack suits the film. I like the portions of the film where some elements (like the band that plays music while Paul and Paula are making love) are placed for no reason. The movie has a simple charm that captivates audiences. I guess that the film's success lies in its way of making the ordinary scenes of life extraordinary.