Although this is closely related to situation 28, it has one essential difference: each of the lovers belongs to a separate group and these groups are at war with each other. In contrast, 28 tends to focus on more obvious obstacles: religion, status, finance, etc.
EXAMPLES:
West Side Story (Robert Wise, Jerome Robbins, 1961)
A young man and woman, associated with different gangs, fall in love – with tragic results. A situation as old as Romeo and Juliet.
The Night Porter (Liliana Cavani, 1974)
A Jewish concentration camp survivor accidentally meets her Nazi guard. They feel compelled to resume their sexual relationship.
Hiroshima Mon Amour (Alain Resnais, 1959)
A French woman has an affair with a German soldier. Once the Germans are defeated she has to pay the price and is branded a collaborator. Her head is shaved and she endures public humiliation.
Situation 28 also focuses on the reason for the enmity between the two groups – families or nation states that have a long history of enmity …
EXAMPLES:
A man from group A kills a man from group B. The group A man then falls in love with a woman from group B. She then discovers the truth (27 – DISCOVERY OF THE DISHONOUR OF A LOVED ONE).
Cal (Pat O’Connor, 1984)
Cal, a young IRA man, falls in love with the widow of a man murdered by his faction.
Gender flip
The Crying Game (Neil Jordan, 1992)
An IRA terrorist falls in love with the wife of a British soldier who has died after being captured by the IRA. He eventually discovers that the wife is a transsexual.
Love is extremely powerful. Desire is often enhanced by the perversity of this kind of situation, but in the long run the influence of family or ethnicity can be volatile, leading to exceptionally dramatic scenarios.
Loving an enemy may also entail one of the lovers having to relocate to a hostile environment, which in time may make life difficult to endure.