In Sins of the Fathers she first appears as a girl who makes her initial entry into the Bohemian art world, by applying to be a model at the art academy. We see her at the studio with two other applicants. She is wearing a bright striped dress, and her hair is combed back and plaited at the nape of her neck. She stands there biting her nails in embarrassment, pulling at her dress, fiddling with her hands, and finally – how is one to present oneself! – slouching: she is being sized up. She wants something, but is helpless, and has to suffer their scrutiny. Yet of the three beauties, she is chosen. A short time later, she turns out to be well suited for the role she is given: “Hanna has become the perfect model”. She now wears her hair in loose curls, and seems so mature that – as we see in the next scene – she can take the role of a queen in the eyes of a student, a vision he then translates into a painting. Wearing a headband, with a white stole on her shoulders, she invests the personal pride of the loved one into the pose of a ruler; by contrast, when the professor enters he takes no notice of the model. Yet this association has separated her from her working-class world. In a decoratively patterned ladylike dress – with a square neckline that is just a little too severe – she is clearly out of place in her father’s humble home. A little later, she has fulfilled her function, the glow of first love has faded, the student is in Italy, and she is just mature: in a long dark skirt and a light blouse with a wide belt around her slim waist, her hair again caught at the nape of her neck, a feather boa adding a hint of the unconventional to her otherwise plain appearance”.

Heide Schlupmann, Unheimlichkeit des Blicks. Das Drama des fruhen deutschen Kinos, Frankfurt am Main, 1990