Who needs Hollywood when you have European films?

In my Media Law and Ethics class, we finally started on Intro to Ethics, and during the last lecture we had a very interesting discussion about morality and the controversial argument on how morality is a by-product of evolution (I'm still digesting this, so don't ask me to explain it until after the semester ends).

Then I stumbled across this German period film and it proved to be a gem. Written by Theodor Fontane, Effi Briest is one of the commonly-read literature in German schools. You can say that it's the German version of Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary. And I thought that the film portrayed the kind of morality and honour that women in the 19th century had to struggle with. There is one memorable scene in which the two men whom Effi was caught in between came together to try and shoot each other in a very civilized way (complete with assistants and bowing). It might sound rather barbaric, but I thought it was rather honourable in owning up to the consequences of one's actions. It's like a German harakiri, only that you let your enemy kill you honourably instead. But more than that, it was my kind of film simply because it has a feminist slant towards the end, which I won't spoil it for anyone.

I would say that the screenplay and actors/actresses are as good as the English ones on BBC. Sorry but the only good clip I managed to find on YouTube didn't have the English subtitles. But just by looking at the scenes I think it's definitely worth watching if you're a period drama queen like me.