Lore
review of documentary of Jewish elder
review of Spanish holocaust
courtesy of Guy Weissberg http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100260720/whenever-you-mention-fascisms-socialist-roots-left-wingers-become-incandescent-why/
http://hnn.us/article/153880 (I particularly like the second link.)
Europa
Europa is based on the true story of a young German Jew who
survived the Holocaust by falling in with the Nazis. Solomon Perel is the son
of a Jewish shoe salesman coming of age in Germany during the rise of Adolf
Hitler. In 1938, a group of Nazis attack Solomon's family home; his sister is
killed, and 13-year-old Solomon flees to Poland. Solomon winds up in an
orphanage operated by Stalinist forces; when German forces storm Poland,
Solomon's fluent German allows him to join the Nazis as a translator, posing as
Josef Peters, an ethnic German. In time, "Peters" is made a member of
the elite Hitler Youth, but since Solomon is circumcised, he can be easily
revealed as a Jew, and he lives in constant fear that his secret will be
discovered. Solomon's close calls include an attempted seduction by Robert
Kellerman, a homosexual officer, and his relationship with Leni,
a beautiful but violently anti-Semitic woman, who wants to bear his child for
the glory of the master race.
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| a dream sequence in Europa Europa |
Louis Malle’s, Lacombe
Lucien, is about the German occupation of France. Based on his own
experiences in France during the occupation, Malle's film does not paint a flattering picture of the French Resistance and eventually he immigrated to America
because of the critical reaction to this film. Essentially the tale of a young
boy who wants to join the Resistance but is shunned by them because of his
youth, he joins the Gestapo. What is most interesting is that that he was not
motivated by ideology, but the perks of power, including the ability to intimidate
others, and the pay. He even falls in love with a young Jewish girl. As a result of his own
confusions and his acts of betrayal, he is pursued by the Resistance and the
Gestapo.
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| Lacombe Lucien |
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| The Downfall |
In The Downfall,
the last ten days of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime are seen through the eyes
of a young woman in his employ in this historical drama from Germany. Traudl
Junge was twenty-two years old when, in the fall of 1942, she was hired to be personal
secretary to Adolf Hitler (played by a riveting Bruno Ganz). In April of 1945,
Junge was still working for Hitler as forces were bearing down on Germany and
the leader retreated to a secret bunker in Berlin for what would prove to be
the last ten days of his life, as well as that of the Third Reich. As Hitler's
mistress Eva Braun attempts to throw a cheerful birthday party for her man,
Hitler's closest associates, including Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels and
Albert Speer urge him to flee the city with only Goebbels maintaining any
illusions that the Third Reich has any hope of survival. Hitler refuses to
leave Berlin, and he spends his final days ranting and raving to Junge, blaming
all around him as he tries to understand where his leadership went wrong.
Meanwhile, Goebbels and his wife round up their six children and bring them to
the bunker as Berlin begins to topple, determined to take their lives rather
than face the Allies after Germany's certain defeat. The Downfall was based in part on the memoirs of the real-life
Traudl Junge, whose experiences also formed the basis of the 2002 documentary Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary.
Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro returns to the
phantasmagorical cinema with Pan's Labyrinth,
a haunting fantasy-drama set in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War and
detailing the strange journeys of an imaginative young girl who may be the
mythical princess of an underground kingdom. Her mother, Carmen recently
remarried to sadistic army captain Vidal and soon to bear the cruel military
man's child, shy young Ofelia is forced to entertain herself as her
recently-formed family settles into their new home nestled deep in the Spanish
countryside. As Ofelia's bed-ridden mother lies immobilized in anticipation of
her forthcoming child and her high-ranking stepfather remains determined to
fulfill the orders of General Francisco Franco to crush a nearby guerrilla
uprising, the young girl soon ventures into an elaborate stone labyrinth
presided over by the mythical faun Pan. Convinced by Pan that she is the lost
princess of legend and that in order to return to her underground home she must
complete a trio of life-threatening tasks, Ofelia sets out to reclaim her
kingdom and return to her father as Vidal's housekeeper Mercedes and doctor
plot secretly on the surface to keep the revolution alive.
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| Lore |
Set at the end of the war in Germany Lore is powerful account of young girl
who inadvertently begins the process of de-Nazification. See my review in Critics at Large http://www.criticsatlarge.ca/2013/07/lore-breaking-down-ideological-barrierhtml#more
New York Times review of Wagner and Me
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