I almost didn't watch this when I realized it would likely be a WWII Jewish victim movie. Don't get me wrong....I am 60 and have watched these things all my life but I am simply tired of them-- I have OD'd on them. There is never a bad Jewish character in them and the Germans are made out as bad as possible in a cartoon fashion.The most effective anti Nazi movies I have watched are in fact their own propaganda movies you can see through them easily. There is a good one on the Warsaw Ghetto and Vichy France.I am gay I might have been gassed too. Yes I believe the Holocaust happened for your information. (I was asked that when I told someone my view on these movies).This movie about 2 twin sisters separated early in life Lotte and Anna is actually a very moving movie. Unfortunately it has too much of the PC stuff I am talking about to be a really breakout film. Disheven German officers shooting baby animals and so forth. But unbelievably it had a very sympathetic German couple in it. In fact the German Actors playing Anna and her Husband were far better actors (and better looking) than the Dutch ones playing Lotte and David--just a fact.It would get about a 7 if the PC filters were not needed as they are it gets a 5. Put some PC filters on and and give it time it is slow moving in the beginning. It will make you cry. It is estimated that 72 million civilians and troops were killed during WWII it is useful to remember them so their suffering was not in vain.RECOMMEND

In a nutshell, this Oscar-nominated drama from the Netherlands follows twins Anna (Sina Richardt, Nadja Uhl, Gudrun Okras) and Lotte (Julia Koopmans, Thekla Reuten, Ellen Vogel) who are suddenly orphaned and torn apart in 1920s Germany and sent to live with two different relatives. Anna lives on her uncle's farm in Germany, and Lotte with her rich aunt in Holland. The sisters must struggle to reconcile the differences of their youth when they meet as adults during World War II and again in their old age.It was heartbreaking to see the two sides of the same family running down the other: the farmers calling the others snobs, and the farmers called barbarians; all in front of the children. The farmer's wife even told Anna that Lotte was dead.Despite the cruelty of both families, the girls meet again as young women. The love that was there when they were six has not diminished one bit.Then comes WWII and they are split again over politics and war. Anna ends up marrying an SS Officer (Roman Knizka), while Lotte's fiancé (Jeroen Spitzenberger) is in Auswitch.The sisters broke off contact over events of the war until old age, when they reconciled before Anna's death.An outstanding story of love.Piotr Kukla's cinematography was excellent, as was direction by Ben Sombogaart.

Recently a Dutch documentary was shown on Israeli television destroying the image of the Dutch as fierce resistance people, saviors of their Jews and Dutch non-cooperation with German authorities during WW2. For most Jewish people this came as quiet a shock, because the image of the Dutch caring for its Jewish people was well established in the minds of Jews living in Israel and the U.S. Of course many were saved, but a lot were betrayed also. (Unlike say the Danish Jews). The novel and movie De Tweeling / Twin Sisters carefully builds the image the Dutch want to have of WW2 and themselves, so it defines in a strange way its national identity.Two twin sisters are separated very young as their father dies. One ends up in an upper class family in Holland, the other in a farming family in Germany. This setup is used to tell parallel story lines of events before, during and after the war: We have the Austrian soldier joining the SS, a Jew going off to the concentration camps, a Jewish family finding shelter for the war and razzias, Polish forced laborers in Germany, the Nazis (over-clichéd but that fits the tone here). At some points the sisters meet again, only to be separated by other events. The story is a framework around the last meeting the two sisters have, telling the story of their lives.It moves unnecessarily slow and has a leisurely pace. The direction is straightforward and on the level of a TV-movie without much imagination. However there are moments of good storytelling, as a new storyline is sometimes introduced without explaining too much (e.g. Anna throwing away some baby cloths; Lotte is married but we have to derive that ourselves).The acting is sometimes disappointing: Especially Thekla Reuten as Lotte is unable to carry the movie having one of the lead roles; this applies also to her male counterpart, Jeroen Spitzenberger as David. Overall the German actors are somewhat better (experienced) than the Dutch ones.When seen as a simple WW2-story De Tweeling is an average movie suitable for a large audience of all ages. But the book is more interesting as this is not the best adaptation from a novel.

When their parents die, both twin sisters Lotte and Anna are seperated by their family. One of them is raised by a wealthy Dutch family and the other one by a German farmer family. They are not allowed to see or even write each other. Because they live in two different worlds they become two different women. The dutch girl is going to marry a Jew, while the German one falls in love with a SS-soldier. When they finally contact each other it turns out that they have grown apart too far, and a definite break seems inevitable. Will it ever be possible to become reconciled with each other?Twin sisters is a beautiful movie that fully deservs the oscar nomination. It's not really another WWII movie as much people think, but more a touching story behind the actual events of the war.