Two Critics Say Markus Schleinzer's Rose Strips the Catharina Linck Case of Its Queer History

Ainhoa Feodoroff and Leo Pinke review Rose, the third feature by Austrian director Markus Schleinzer, in which Sandra Hüller, who won the Berlinale's Silver Bear for the role, plays a woman who passes as a man in 17th century Germany after the Thirty Years' War. Rose takes over a ruined farm and marries a village woman, Suzanna, until a bee sting exposes her and a hasty trial condemns both women. The film is loosely inspired by Catharina Linck, executed in 1721 for sodomy, and the critics argue it waters down, if not removes, her queerness. They also set out the dispute in the FAZ between biographer Angela Steidele, who accused the film of betraying history and plagiarising her novel, and critic Andreas Kilb, who defended it.