The Nasty Girl: It couldn't happen here, could it?

"The Nasty Girl" is a very obscure (at least to me) German film (1989) that is strikingly relevant today - director Michael Verhoeven's account based apparently loosely on facts of German high-school student who wins an essay contest with an exploration of life in her town during WWII, revealing many connections to Nazism and to the execution of Jews - and she pursues this matter on through college and early marriage, and pays a great price - attacks by neo-Nazis, ostracism, broken marriage. The movie, however, has a light even jaunty tone - done somewhat as a narrative told by the woman from her 30s or so looking back on her experiences - her childhood shown in b/w with lots of high comedy of life in convent school, many of the scenes done in high expressionist style (e.g., her visits to the archives, she talks to a man at a desk against a painted backdrop of library shelves) so that the movie at times looks more like a filmed play or perhaps hearkens back to films like Caligari - very visually imaginative and inventive in style. The girl/woman herself very spirited and bright-eyed - all this keeps the film from becoming depressing or grim, despite its moments of sadness and danger. I could not stop thinking of the brave young girl in Cranston (R.I.) who sued her school district to get the high school to remove a prayer banner and has paid a tremendous price, as the adults in the community have viciously criticized her (one pol actually on air memorably called her a "vicious little thing" - sound like "The Nasty Girl"?), leading to a climate where fellow students feel it's OK to threaten her - a terrible and shameful moment for my state and for all who cherish our freedoms. Nazism? Couldn't happen here, could it?