Vienna, 1938: Kristallnacht has ended and elderly Jewish women are sweeping up the broken glass. From this first scene forward, Axel Corti sets the tone for his sweeping trilogy—films about not the high drama of a cruel time, but how that cruelty weighs upon the everyday. After finding his home looted, Ferry Tobler (Johannes Silberschneider), son of a murdered tailor, flees Austria along with other sudden refugees risking the journey to Prague. Along the way, he joins up with several desperate travelers: “Gandhi” (Armin Mueller-Stahl), an anti-Nazi resistor who has fled Dachau, and Alena (Barbara Petritsch), a refugee committee worker. Using beautifully composed black-and-white cinematography matched impeccably to period newsreels, Corti’s first installment exudes the emotional resonance of people running from the harsh jackboot of history.

—Steve Seid

• Written by Georg Stefan Troller. Photographed by Wolfgang Treu. With Armin Mueller-Stahl, Johannes Silberschneider, Barbara Petritsch, Fritz Muller. (110 mins, In German with English subtitles, B&W, Beta SP, From National Center for Jewish Film)