Red Spider (orig. Czerwony Pająk / Červeny Pavouk) [2015]

MPAA (UR would R)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
FilmWeb.pl listing*
CSFD.cz listing*
FDB.cz listing*
CinEuropa.org listing

Film.onet.pl (K. Kandukska) review*
Film.onet.pl (D. Romanowska) review*

APUM.com (E. Luna) review*
The Hollywood Reporter (S. Dalton) review
Variety (P. DeBruge) review

Red Spider (orig. Czerwony Pająk / Červeny Pavouk) [2015] [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[CSFD]*[FDB]* (directed and cowritten by Marcin Koszałka [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[CSFD]*[FDB]* along with Łukasz M. Maciejewski [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[FDB]* based on the original work of Marta Szreder [IMDb]) is an excellent Polish / Czech / Slovakian psychological / crime thriller set in late 1967 Communist era Krakow, Poland (the late 1960s having been a time of relative liberalization in the Communist bloc, before the crushing of the Prague Spring across the border / mountains (south) from Krakow in neighboring Czechoslovakia).  The film played recently at the 2015 (51st Annual) Chicago International Film Festival and will play again at the upcoming 2015 (27th Annual) Polish Film Festival in America here in Chicago in November.

The film here combines / conflates stories of two of the most notorious serial killers in modern (if still Communist Era) Polish history:

The first was that of Karol Kot [en.wikip], who came to be known as "The Vampire of Krakow," a (high school) student from that city, who over the course of two years (1964-66) terrorized it, attacking, in separate generally individual knifings, both children and the elderly, killing two of them and injuring 10 others before being apprehended.  Shocking was his age as he was only in his late teens (he apparently completed his high school exams - maturoval - in jail while awaiting trial).  Clearly his psychological state was called into question.  But after thorough examination, he was declared completely sane and was executed by hanging in May 1968, being one of the youngest convicts executed in modern / Communist era Poland.

The second story used here was that of Lucian Staniak [1]*[2]* who came to be known as "The Red Spider" (the title of the film) who was said to have terrorized Katowice in neighboring Polish Silesia in a similar fashion at roughly the same time.  He gained his moniker by reportedly taunting the Press of the time with "letters written in red ink and in a spidery script." However, HE appeared to have been simply an "urban legend."  Now _how_ could a serial killer turn out to be a fake?  Well, to this day, no one is really sure who Victorian England's Jack the Ripper was.  In the case of Poland of the mid-1960s, it was a Communist county, in which information was heavily controlled.  As authorities looked for an actual killer in Krakow, rumors about similar murders taking place in basically "the next Province over" (Silesia) could have metastasized there.

Whether there were there actual murders in Silesia, like those attributed to "The Red Spider" at all (or were they also made up like the Red Spider himself). is not clear to me.  What is clear however is that there were actual attacks and murders in Krakow attributed to Karol Kot [en.wikip] who came to known as "The Vampire of Krakow" and he, young as he was, was, after a judicial process, sentenced to death / executed for them.

To the movie ...

The story's about a young man from Krakow named ... Karol Kremer (played by Filip Pławiak [IMDb] [FW.pl]* [CEu]) a high school, "all city" competitive diver, hence "quite excellent" though not necessarily of "national championship" caliber.  Now diving does involve a bit of "risk taking" and we also see early in the film that Karol does tricks with a motor bike (today, we would see someone like him do similar tricks with snowboard or perhaps skateboard).  He also comes from an utterly nondescript family.  Okay, he seemed to be the only son of his parents (played by Małgorzata Foremniak [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[CEu] and Marek Kalita [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[CEu]), though families in the city, during Communism, tended to be small, because honestly, it'd be _really difficult_ to find space for kids in a large family.  That he'd be the only child in his family could carry a significance as an "only child" could be doted-on more perhaps than one with brothers / sisters.  Finally we also see that Karol, a teenager after all, did have a certain fascination with the morbid.

Then there's also a random, by all appearances quite kindly, if also perhaps somewhat nerdy, Krakow veterinarian (played by Adam Woronowicz [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[CEu]), married (his wife played by Dorota Landowska [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) if childless, who Karol knows initially only because his family had an aging dog... which he'd have to take periodically to him for his parents. 

The two, Karol and this vet become increasingly important characters in the story, as Krakow, its inhabitants _and_ ITS AUTHORITIES become _increasingly panicked_ by a wave of seemingly random if brutal murders, some taking place JUST AT THE EDGES OF QUITE PUBLIC VENUES / EVENTS (hence murders that could not easily be hushed up, as there would have been quite a few people who'd run across the bodies and then the authorities coming to the crime scenes).

Karol, in his late teens, if nothing else, seemed quite fascinated by the audaciousness of these crimes collecting whatever news clippings he'd find about them in the papers, while to the Vet, 40-something, the story didn't seem to interest him much at all.   He'd just "tend to the animals" brought to his care.  But he'd also not necessarily go home directly after work at night, even if he wouldn't seem like the type who'd like to carouse much after work either.  Still, his absence from home, especially since it didn't seem that he had much anything else to do, would irritate his, again, _childless_ wife.

Much, needless to say, ensues ... all it all it makes for a very interesting, well spun, crime story, with the added ingredients of the time and place.  Good job! ;-)


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

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Full Contact [2015]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CineEuropa.org listing

Exclaim.ca (R. Bell) review
The Hollywood Reporter (R. Ford) review
Variety (P. DeBruge) review

Full Contact [2015] [IMDb] [CEu] (written and directed by David Verbeek [IMDb] [CEu] is a very near future arguably SET IN THE PRESENT DAY sci-fi / cyberpunk-ish Dutch / Croatian film which played recently at the 2015 (51st Annual) Chicago International Film Festival.

The film's about a combat drone pilot (played by Grégoire Colin [IMDb] [CEu]) who begins the story flying said combat drones presumably over the Middle East for presumably the U.S. military out of a trailer at a base presumably outside of Las Vegas in Nevada.

All the "presumably-s" above are part of the point.  NOTHING is particular clear, and he doesn't really talk much.  When not blowing-up people thousands of miles away by remote control, he spends his time blowing-off steam hitting-on hookers at strip clubs. But it's clearly "just a past time."  When one of said strippers lets him take her home with him, (home being another another tin trailer), he tells her that he's impotent and they spend the night snuggling.  Not _that_ actually could be attractive to a rather sexed-out stripper/hooker.  So when she actually takes a liking to him, she's quickly disappointed as he continues to visit her in her place of employment.  She'd want "something more," he's just interested in something "just (if barely) unreachable" / "over the horizon."

Well things "at work" suddenly "hit the fan."  Our combat drone pilot, Lt. Ivan Delphine -- a rather odd name for an American ..., 'cept it turns out that he's NOT an American but French.  What's he doing flying combat drones for (presumably) the U.S. military out of a bunker outside of Las Vegas?  Well, he's seems to be some sort of a "military contractor" perhaps "modern day French Foreign Legion" type -- bombs on command what he's told is a "terrorist training camp" BUT it ends up being a school.

That DOES actually shake him up, and he "leaves his job" and goes to (though the film was filmed along the Adriatic coast in Croatia) what would presumably be Lake Mead (a giant reservoir sitting out in the desert outside of Las Vegas  which made out the northern portion of the Grand Canyon by the Hoover/Boulder Dam) where between drunkenness and simply "the heat of the sun" he begins to hallucinate and imagines himself SHOOTING with an assault rifle the Middle Eastern young people he killed in video game fashion with his drone from thousands of miles away.  At this point, we hear a voiceover declare "partial contact."

Recovering from his drunken stupor, Ivan returns back to France, gets a job with "Baggage Security" at an airport there AND ... decides to take-up "kickboxing."   Why kickboxing?  Presumably he no longer wants to fight "from a distance" but "mano a mano" / "up close and personal."

During his time working at the airport, he gets to know / flirt with another "baggage handler" (could be symbolic...) named Cindy (played by Lizzie Brocheré [IMDb] [CEu]).  At one point to "impress" Cindy and obviously against the rules, he forces open one of the suitcases that he and Cindy were handing in their baggage handling area and tries to"profile" the person to whom that suitcase belonged.  She giggles and tells him that he's almost certainly wrong.  Feeling challenged, he tells her "okay, I'll profile you" and proceeds to "profile her" based on her appearance and what (little!) he knew of her.  He _wasn't_ completely off, _but_ not particularly close either.  When he runs into her one day outside of work, and realize how "off" he was about some aspects of her, he apologizes to her.

Finally, after many weeks of training, he finally gets his chance to "kickbox" against "a Middle Eastern type" in MMA ring.  And we hear a voiceover declare "full contact" ...

Sigh ... IMHO a quite fascinating film (but one that will almost certainly never make it past the festival circuit -- and I find that a shame).  Still ... okay, Ivan "grew" ... but is it _really_ a lot of growth when all that Ivan appeared to achieve was learn to fight "mano a mano" rather than blow people up with a drone by remote control ...?  More interesting would be if something did come of his interactions with Cindy ...

Clearly a quite thought provoking film in any case about the increasing "detachment" that we face in contemporary society, a detachment entering into both "love" and "war"  Not a bad festival film!



* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

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The Abandoned [2015]

MPAA (R)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing

Best-Horror-Movies.com (M. Klug) review

The Abandoned [2015] (directed by Eytan Rockaway [wikip] [IMDb], screenplay by Ido Fluk [IMDb]) is an excellent small well-constructed indie horror film of the Twilight Zone [1959-1964] [wikip] [IMDb] vein that played recently at the 2015 (51st Annual) Chicago International Film Festival.

We're introduced to Streak (played by Louisa Krause) a woman in her early 20s talking to her mother on the cell-phone as she walks down a rather empty "concrete and steel" urban district on a grey (overcast) late afternoon to a "job interview" for a "security job" in one of said "concrete and steel" grey buildings.  She's not particularly excited about the job, but her mother reminds her that she needs to get this job or child services will come to take her, Streak's little girl, Clara, away.

Now being a security guard does not necessarily require a particularly large skill set, but it's DEFINITELY NOT for everybody, and it becomes rather quickly clear that Streak may not be necessarily the best candidate for that job.  There's clearly a reason why "child services" is threatening to take her kid away, and when at the first sign of creepiness while walking, flashlight in hand, through a big, dark and largely abandoned building, she starts reaching for her "anti-anxiety meds," one gets the message.  But there she is, SHE NEEDS A JOB.

Her presumed future boss is clearly not picky.  He's there long enough to (1) give her "a whistle and a flashlight" (okay, also a uniform and presumably a taser); (2) introduce her to her soon-to-be partner, Cooper (played by Jason Patric), who's been working there long enough to quickly tell her that SHE'S going to be "doing the walk arounds" while HE "holds fort, 'manning' the screens;" and (3) tell her _something_ of the large building that she and "Cooper" would be protecting each evening.  That building was clearly once intended to be opulent, but, alas, thanks to the 2008 Financial Crash, was now "still born" / "on life support" UNFINISHED, BARRICADED / CLOSED, EMPTY and yet, still around because its owners (represented by the "boss" referred to above) were not entirely sure about what to do next.

Oh yes, and those clouds casting a late afternoon pall over the city as Streak was walking to her interview / new job, were coalescing into a storm.  So it LITERALLY becomes a "dark and stormy night ..." ;-)

Okay, we're given a very good, indeed, quite classic "scary story" set up.  And it could go all sorts of ways from there, from Steven King's The Shining [wikip 1] [2] [IMDb], to Quentin Tarantino's From Dusk to Dawn [wikip] [IMDb], to a less "monster-y" more "psychological thriller-like" Twilight Zone [1959-1964] [wikip] [IMDb] direction.  The path chosen by the film makers here was the latter and the film's a reminder that a lot of great special effects are not necessary to make a movie that can make one's skin crawl.  Good job ;-)


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Bridge of Spies [2015]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  ChicagoTribune (3 1/2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (A-)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (B. Tallerico) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review  


Bridge of Spies [2015] (directed by Steven Spielberg [Wikip] [IMDb], screenplay by Matt Chapman [IMDb] and Ethan and Joel Coen [wikip] [IMDb [1] [2]) may not set out to tell the best known of Cold War stories, but it certainly tells it well as a poignant multi-leveled parable with obvious resonances with today.

The film's also a reminder that spies need not be flashy (Ian Fleming's James Bond), tough (Liam Neeson's Bryan Mills) or even super-smart (Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan).  An excellent spy can simply be "all but invisible."

So it was then with Rudolf Abel (played in the film by Mark Rylance).  Born in 1903 in England of anti-Czarist Russian emigré parents, he returned to Soviet Russia after the Revolution in 1920 bearing an invaluable set of skills -- he knew the customs of Britain / the West and spoke perfect English.  So it was perhaps inevitable that he would be recruited into the Soviet spy services (in their various incarnations).  And shortly after WW II, he was sent with a mundane British / American cover as a quite innocuous small time "photographer / artist" to Brooklyn, NY to _manage_ the Soviet nuclear spy ring in the U.S. that extended from the Soviet diplomatic missions in Washington and New York to LOS ALAMOS (the Rosenbergs, etc).  The small time "photographer / artist" cover allowed him to hold odd hours and even leave New York for fairly extended periods of time without arousing suspicion.  In terms of income, his Brooklyn living quarters were very modest (very simple / "bohemian"...), and he lived in good part on a small stipend that he received from the Soviet government.  This was a guy who honestly _no one would notice_ unless _told_ by someone to _notice him_.

Yet, eventually the FBI was informed to take note of him, and so in the beginning sequence of the film here, we're shown how this utterly innocuous man was apprehended as a "Master Spy" / "ring leader."

Great, we got him.  What now?  This was the 1950s.  The Rosenbergs (American citizens) were given the chair for their betraying the country and _giving the Soviets_ America's Manhattan Project earned nuclear secrets (putting the U.S. into previously unfathomable danger of nuclear annihilation) .

Rudolf Abel however was different.  He _wasn't_ an American citizen.  Yes, he was a spy, but he was a SOVIET spy, who DIDN'T betray his country.  Instead, as a _kind of soldier_ he did what _his country_ had sent him to do ... to spy on us.  As such, he was afforded some pragmatic sympathy by this country, or at least by our nation's "powers that be."

First, he was given a proper trial with a quite reasonably good defense.  The defense lawyer that he was given was James B. Donovan (played magnificently in the film by Tom Hanks).  Not only was Donovan an A-list lawyer, the Soviets would have known him as he served as part of the U.S. Prosecuting team at Nuremburg.

Of course, Abel was found guilty.  After all, he was a spy.  However, pointedly he was _not_ given the chair (as the Rosenbergs had).   Again, the U.S. government _chose_ to make a distinction between him and the Rosenbergs (according to the film at Donovan's own suggestion).  The Rosenbergs were traitors, while Abel was arguably "a soldier" and hence the U.S. government chose to look at him as a kind of "a prisoner or war" / "an insurance policy" to keep in hand in case an American spy would someday be captured by the Soviets.

That proved to be a very smart move as only a few years later U.S. U-2 pilot Gary Powers (played in the film by Austin Stowell) was shot down over the Soviet Union and subsequently captured.

This set up then the rest of the story portrayed in the film, where James B. Donovan was sent by the U.S. government "as a private citizen" to Berlin (even as the world was reeling from the recent construction by the Soviets / East Germans of the Berlin Wall) to negotiate a prisoner swap of Abel for Powers.  Of course no one trusted each other and even the relatively "lowly" East German Government proved to have its own agenda.  But Donovan who had experience in not just trial law, but commercial (insurance) law proved to be able to "get the job done" and indeed more. 

It all proved to be one fascinating story, and one can remind us of the value of having some pragmatism as we seek to confront / manage the various foreign policy challenges of our day.

A VERY GOOD FILM, made by ARGUABLY AMERICA'S HOLLYWOOD "A-TEAM" (Spielberg, the Coen Brothers and Tom Hanks...) and would probably offer a very interesting message for those who would have "eyes to see and ears to hear ..."


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

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Goosebumps [2015]

MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB (A-II)  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (K. Walsh) review
RogerEbert.com (G.Kenny) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review


I have to admit that I went quite skeptically to Goosebumps [2015] (directed by Rob Letterman [wikip] [IMDb], screenplay by Daren Lemke [IMDb], screen story by Scott Alexander [IMDb] and Larry Karaszewski [IMDb] based on the wildly popular children's books [GR] [Amzn] of R.L. Stein [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb]).

And the first 10-15 minutes which setup the film were NOT great:

Teenager Zach (played by Dylan Minnette) and his mom, Gale (played by Amy Ryan) move back to Gale's small hometown back in Delaware (from NYC...) a year after her husband's / Zach's dad's death.  Zach, pulled out from his high school to a new one, has to make new friends in a new, "quainter" environment.  It turns out that there's a teenage girl named Hannah (played by Odeya Rush), who lives next door, 'cept he's still not gonna know anyone when he starts school there (in the middle of the school year) 'cause she's being "home schooled." 

Things IMHO got decidedly creepier when it becomes clear she's being homeschooled by her rather intense / "off" dad (played by Jack Black), (where's her mom?) who he seems to spend a lot of time "protecting her" by yelling at her and whoever (by chance) would come close her (like Zach).

Once when the yelling coming from Hannah / her dad's house seems particularly bad, Zach even calls the police.  When the two Mayberry-like cops do show up, this sets up (for me) the most problematic line in the whole film:  Hannah's dad, explains to the two rather clueless cops responding to the call that he was simply playing a tape quite loudly on his sound-system, and asks them: "Are you here to harass me simply because I'm an audiophile?"  Yes, one of the cops hears pedophile and tries to arrest him but she's stopped by the other cop who heard him "correctly."  STILL I FOUND THIS EXCHANGE UNBELIEVABLY CREEPY ... and CERTAINLY NOT WORTH any "joke" to be found there...

HOWEVER, that STUPID / PROFOUNDLY CREEPY (!) EXCHANGE aside ... the story SOON DID GET MUCH BETTER ...

It turns out that Hannah's dad is R.L. Stein or perhaps "R.L. Stein" (a fictionalized version of himself) who, like the actual R.L. Stein [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb], was a wildly successful "children's scary book writer."

Stein explains to Zach as well as Zach's nerdy tag-along friend named "Champ" (played by Ryan Lee) who Zach's made in these first few days at his new high school, that when he (Stein) was young, he himself was very, very nerdy, and eventually closed in on himself and started to write, BUT he got to be SUCH A GOOD WRITER that the MONSTERS that he created STARTED TO BECOME "REAL" ... So he had to keep them, these "Demons" of his, "under lock and key" (locked inside his books).

Well, Stein's introversion "issues" begin to explain why Stein had no wife (and why Hannah had no mother ...) and perhaps even his behavior towards Hannah his daughter.  He really was closed in on himself, even if apparently quite successful as a writer.  (I still found all this worrisome, but at least it began to be understandable now ...).

BUT as one STARTS TO "understand" the dad, a new problem occurs:

Some of his "demons" / "monsters" that have been "locked-up in his books," are accidently "set free" by the inadvertent actions of Zach and his friend.  SO ... soon the entire previously "sleepy little town" is being assaulted by a truly _remarkably diverse_ set of monsters (coming from R.L. Stein's books), led by an truly inspired and now _goofily_ creepy / evil ventriloquist's dummy named "Slappy" (voiced again by Jack Black).  Honestly, "SLAPPY" "STEALS" THE FILM and one REALLY wants to ... ;-).

Anyway, much ensues as Zach, Hannah, "Champ" and Hannah's dad try to round-up and put all those "monsters" / "demons" back into their books.  Much of this is indeed very funny / quite inspired.

There is however a creepiness in the film's first 15 minutes that's hard to let go of.  I did, finally, and did enjoy much of the film.  But is it an excuse for domestic violence, or ... even worse?  I do hope not, but I do raise the question ...   


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Daughter (orig. Dukhtar) [2014]

MPAA (UR would be R)   Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing

The Hollywood Reporter (D. Young) review
Variety (J. Weissberg) review

Daughter (orig. Dukhtar) [2014] (written and directed by Afia Nathaniel [wikip] [IMDb]) was Pakistan's official entry for Best Foreign Language Film to the 2014 (87th Academy) Academy Awards.  The film played recently at the 2015 (6th Annual) Chicago South Asian Film Festival.

Beautifully shot and set largely in the Federally Administered Tribal Region of Pakistan, it tells the story of a Pakistani mother Allah Rakhi (played by Samiya Mumtaz [wikip] [IMDb]) seeking to protect her 10 year old daughter Zainab (played by Saleha Aref [IMDb]) from being married-off by her husband / tribal leader Daulat Khan (played by Asif Khan [IMDb]) as an "alliance building / peace offering" to a rival tribal leader Tor Gul (played by Abdullah Jan [IMDb]). 

Allah Rakhi herself, though raised already in Lahore (Pakistan's second largest city) had been married-off at 15 by her (perhaps first generation city-residing) family to the much older Khan and _didn't want_ her daughter to suffer the same fate. 

To be totally fair, even Khan wasn't exactly happy with Gul's offer -- "peace" / a tribal alliance in exchange for your 10 year old daughter -- BUT ... "What's a tribal leader to do?"  Many people of both Khan's / Gul's clans "stood to die" if "peace" was not (re)established between them.

If this all sounds like both a Greek tragedy (think honestly of Iphigenia ...) and positively medieval (where kings, sultans and emperors married off their daughters all the time to make peace with one or another rival king, sultan or emperor...), well THAT'S THE FILM'S POINT (!).

Angry that she herself never saw her own mother after being married off to Khan, Allah Rakhi (whose name means "Allah protects") packs up her daughter and makes a run for it from the Tribal Region toward Lahore, in hopes of first finding and then being (again she hopes...) protected by her family there.  On the way, she receives the help of a sympathetic truck driver Sohail (played by Mohib Mirza [wikip] [IMDb]).  Much of course ensues in this very simple yet profoundly personalist thriller ...

Excellent and again BEAUTIFULLY SHOT film ...


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

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Labyrinth of Lies (orig. Im Labyrinth des Schweigens) [2014]

MPAA (R)  ChicagoTribune (4 Stars)  RE.com (2 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (4+ Stars)

IMDb listing
Film-Zeit.de listing*

Der Spiegel (K. Heinrich) review*
Die Zeit  (L. Greven) review*
Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung (A. Haneke) review / coverage*

Hollywood Reporter (B. von Hoeij) review
Slant Magazine (O. Ivanov) review  
Variety (J. Leydon) review

Chicago Tribune (K. Walsh) review
RogerEbert.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (B. Mercer) review

Labyrinth of Lies (orig. Im Labyrinth des Schweigens) [2014] [IMDb] [FZ.de]* (directed by Giulio Ricciarelli [IMDb] [FZ.de]*, screenplay by Elisabeth Bartel [IMDb] [FZ.de]* and Giulio Ricciarelli [IMDb] [FZ.de]*, screen story by Elisabeth Bartel [IMDb] [FZ.de]*, with collaboration by Amelie Syberberg [IMDb]) is Germany's submission for Best Foreign Language Film to the 2015 (88th Annual) Academy Awards.

It tells the story of the 1963 Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials [en.wikip] (Die Auschwitzprozesse) [de.wikip].*

Today it would seem _hard to believe_ that people ANYWHERE (both inside / outside of Germany/Austria) would not know of the horrors that took place in Auschwitz during World War II.  Yet in the late 1950s, West Germany -- SO HAPPY even TRULY SURPRISED that it was getting back on its feet (with assistance of its former enemies on the West) and SO GRATEFUL that it was NOT being _crushingly punished_ by them (as it had been, perhaps then unfairly, after World War I) -- was TRYING REALLY HARD to put "the Past" behind it.  So in W. Germany "the young" really didn't know what their dads and grand-dads did "during the War," and "the old" (said dads / grand dads) REALLY DIDN'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT.

Yet, even as West Germany was trying, desperately, to become "a normal country" HOW DOES ONE DO THAT WITHOUT CONFRONTING SAID PAST?  That is then what this film is about.

A seemingly random incident in 1958 sets the story in motion:  Simon Kirsch (played by Johannes Krisch [IMDb] [FZ.de]*), lifelong Frankfurt residing (except when he, Jewish, was deported with all his family to Auschwitz...) artist, one fine day, ran into a high school teacher who he immediately recognized as Alois Schultz (played by Hartmut Volle [IMDb]), a former SS-guard.  Herr Schultz was doing, there on the play ground, what he had been doing in Auschwitz, dividing his charges (now a class of somewhat bored eye-rolling teenagers... instead of ...) into ... groups.  Disturbed by what he inadvertently had seen, Simon tells the story to a 30-something crusading journalist Thomas Gnielka [de.wikip]* (played in the film by André Szymanski [IMDb] [FZ.de]*) who writes a scathing article about it: How is it that 13 years after the War, a former Waffen SS-man was TEACHING at a GERMAN PUBLIC SCHOOL?  This was against the post-War Germany's Denazification Laws, wasn't it?

Well, when Gnielka, his crisp/scathing article in hand, goes over to Frankfurt's Prosecutor's office demanding that something be done, he's ridiculed: "Oh, you found a former two-bit Nazi working in a two-bit public service job, AND ..."

But he does catch the attention of a young junior prosecutor (fictionalized) named Johann Radmann (played by Alexander Fehling [IMDb] [FZ.de]*), who tired of being assigned to "traffic court" cases, decides to check Kirsch / Gnielka's story out.  It wasn't easy.  Frankfurt's archives didn't seem to have a lot of Nazi Era files ... and he's directed to "go to the Americans."

When he gets there, presumably the giant Rhine-Main Airbase outside of town, U.S. Military Archivist Major Parker (played by Tim Williams [IMDb]) laughs at him as well: "Oh, you're looking for a Nazi.  You were ALL NAZIS.  Then after the War NONE OF YOU WERE NAZIS.  And now IN THE EAST, YOU'RE ALL COMMUNISTS.  Just let it go, and pretend like everybody else here that you're now a DEMOCRAT and you'll make everybody happy ..."  "But we weren't ALL Nazis" "Oh, yes you were, EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU." "My DAD WASN'T A NAZI." "If that's what you believe, fine, suit yourself, but you _really were_ ALL NAZIS.  But, okay, what is it that you want?   Ah yes, what specific Nazi do you want to look up...?"

Well young, driven, still quite naive Johann Radmann looks up his Nazi, Alois Schultz, and finds, that yes, the story checks out.  He really was part of the Waffen SS and he really spent time as a guard at a camp called Auschwitz.

Now at the time AUSCHWITZ rang no bell for him.  Indeed, he was reminded by one of his 50 y/o superiors at the Frankfurt Prosecutor's Office that he himself, after "distinguishing himself in the U-boat fleet" during the War "spent a year after the War in a French concentration camp" before being sent back to Germany, adding dismissively, "Don't tell my wife this, but the food there was better than hers ..."  Indeed, Radmann's (sainted "non-Nazi") dad was "15 years missing from the Russian Front" and would have PRESUMABLY BEEN AT LEAST INITIALLY HELD in some Soviet concentration camp (gulag...) as well.

So ... Auschwitz, what's in a name? ... Well Radmann soon finds out.  Why?  Well DESPITE THE SARCASM and LACK OF SUPPORT on the part of all kinds of his colleagues and minor superiors, he catches the eye of Frankfurt's Attorney General / Chief Prosecutor Fritz Bauer [en.wikip] [de.wikip]* (played in the film by Gert Voss [IMDb]) who, perhaps since Radmann was so young (and hence "clean"), saw him as someone who could pursue the case.

The German reviews that I cite above note that though Radmann was fictionalized, THE REAL  Fritz Bauer [en.wikip] [de.wikip]* REALLY DID ENLIST YOUNG PROSECUTORS -- perhaps in Capone Era Eliot Ness / "Untouchables" [wikip] [IMDb] fashion -- to pursue this case that expanded into the 1960s era Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials [en.wikip] (Die Auschwitzprozesse) [de.wikip].*

Much ensued ... including a sizable side-plot of trying to capture / bring to trial Joseph Mengele, who did, in fact, get away.  But a lot of the "smaller fish" did not.  And this changed forever the way Germans came to understand the war. 

So then ... had the Germans ALL been Nazis as the American major told the young Johann Radmann at the beginning of his journey into his country's Nazi past?  Folks, this is a remarkable film and ONE THAT GERMANY OF TODAY CAN HONESTLY BE PROUD OF.   Honestly, this is one heck of a film.


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

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