Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)* * * *

Judgment at Nuremberg (DVD at Amazon)
It took me a really long time to watch this film, even though it was an Oscar winning film on a topic I'm fascinated by, namely the Nuremberg trials. It's 3 1/2 hours long and basically the whole thing is filmed in the courtroom. I just didn't see how it would not bore me to tears. But Kaja was visiting and was interested to have seen it too. Neither of us wanted to see it; we wanted to have seen it as part of our filmatic education. So with a partner to bolster our courage in the face of boredom, a six-pack and a big bowl of popcorn, we decided to work our way through it over three nights and set the DVD rolling at 11pm one night. We were transfixed through whole film and ended up watching it straight through, not finishing until after 2am.

Why is this such a good movie? Gosh, it's really hard to put your finger on. The acting is great. Spencer Tracy is very believable as a well meaning and thoughtful small-town judge, who is really trying to understand the German people and is trying to not pre-judge them. The German lawyer is played by Maximilian Schell, an Austrian-born actor. He is magnetic in the film, and he won an Oscar fo r Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performance. The screenplay is also thoughtful and doesn't make any cheap shots (unlike the abysmal Taking Sides, which was on a similar topic). The screenplay also garnered an Oscar.

Oh, yes, the plot. There is a trial of three Nazi judges who are being charged with going along with the Nazis and thereby allowing the Nazis to pervert justice so that instead of communists, jews, disabled, etc being just summarily locked away, their persecution was given the patina of a proper and fair legal hearing. Two of the main cases being discussed have to do with forced sterilization. Mainly we (the viewer) are sitting in on the court cases and listening to the arguments by each side. There are a few scenes in prison with the three men on trial, a few scenes of parties, but by and large it's in a courtroom. But it is riveting commentary on the moral culpability of professionals within a terrible system.

I didn't feel like the film tried to tell me what to think and how to judge the men on trial. In the end, I sympathized with many of the arguments of the German lawyer, and I felt the American judge took a moral high-ground that is a bit unrealistic*. I think that was one of the points of the film, to make one think about these issues and show that it is not so cut-and-dried. The path to moral corruption is walked one little step at a time and at each turn, you may even be making what you think is the most moral choice in that situation. So in fact, when you finally do become an active participant in the actions of a corrupt State, it can be almost by surprise and without you ever really making a conscious choice to be such a participant.

*Kaja's comment: This was mostly likely requisite for the era in which it was released. It was a time where the US stood as an ultimate moral compass and empowered to pass judgment by being the victors. If we think about the how the nature of our politics and public has changed from then to now, I think that we would see our protagonist judge in a 2008 film tested and succumb to the human sympathies that we extend to other individuals in the middle of personal dilemmas.

Eroica (1958)* * *

Eroica (link to DVD at Amazon)
The very title of this film, Eroica (English title: Heroism), seems to be a sarcastic play on the meaning of heroism. The protagonists in the two short stories in this film are hardly what one would call heroes. The two stories are set during WWII. The movie was made in 1957, so just after Stalin died but Poland was still in the grips of communist censorship. The director is Andrzej Munk, who is apparently one of the Polish great directors although I don't know his work and he died in 1961. The film was meant to be a trilogy but ended up as a bilogy.

The first film (Scherzo alla Polacca) tells the story of a self-centered man who gets disenchanted with the idea of being a volunteer soldier in the Warsaw Uprising against the Germans in 1944. He sneaks off during basic training and goes back to his wife -- who it turns out has taken in a Hungarian officer as a lover. Ah so much for the myth of the brave partisan and his steadfast girl waiting for him at home. He is a coward, but perhaps that is sign of his sanity. Unwillingly, he is pressed into being a courier between a Hungarian brigade that wants to sneak weapons to the Polish partisans. Ultimately, the effort is futile. Unfortunately at the very end of the movie, the man makes a sappy turn-around in character and abandons his self-centered ways and goes to help the the uprising. It would have been more in character with the movie if the man remained cynical and flipped his finger at the uprising. I got the feeling that a censor prohibited such a cynical ending.

The second film (Ostinato Lugubre) tells the story of a group of Polish Officers who
are prisoners of war in a German camp. Most of them have been there about 5 years and they are all now missing a few marbles. The are treated well and eat enough, but the constant confinement, lack of privacy, and resulting "submarine fever" lead to depression and other mental illnesses. One man can no longer deal with the lack of privacy and "escapes" -- into some ductwork above the toilets. The others think he has really escaped and he becomes a symbol of hope and pride for the entire camp. Two men who know of it steal food for him and protect his secret, a secret that must be kept for the sake of the morale of the camp. All the while the escapee is slowly sinking into complete depression and insanity in his little hole. There is something deeply cynical and bitter about this story and I wonder if it was not meant as an allegory for life in communist Poland in the 1950s. This was the Stalinist period and life was very hard. People were not starving, but rather they were in a prison of the mind not unlike that in the POW camp depicted here.

This movie features prominently in The Red and the White: The Cinema of People’s Poland by Paul Coates, a book on the post-war cinema in Poland.

The Murderers are Among Us * * * *

Die Moerder sind unter uns (The Murderers are among us) occupies a special place in popular German film. It is the very first film made after WWII in Germany. It was made in 1946 in Berlin, and it is set against a horrific backdrop of destruction. It's really unfathomable. There is a whole series of films from this time called the "Rubble Films". Rubble, rubble everywhere. Mountains of rubble. Lines of women, only women, with pails move the rubble just to have a way to walk from A to B. I was in Berlin in the mid-1980s and saw parts of town that were clearly rebuilt after being bombed. I went to the museums and saw the photos. But it's much more powerful in film since you see how the rubble was from skyline to skyline, and there is simply no structure standing.

Oh, a story. Yes, there is a story. It is a story about a man suffering from post-traumatic stress from having been a part of atrocities. If you say atrocities and WWII, you naturally think of the Holocaust, but this isn't about that. This is about a soldier who witnesses the atrocities in Poland where Hitler waged a war of annilation and where execution of civilians, POWs, and Jews by regular soldiers was widespread. The Eastern front was a vicious war with no regard for human life, and on that front, Poland was especially horrific. Hilter intended to use Poland for expansion of Germany and planned to eradicate the Poles to do it. Of the crimes against humanity presented at the Nurenberg Trials, the non-Holocaust ones are almost all from Poland. There were mass executions of 10,000s of thousands of civilians and POWs at a time. Horrific stuff.

In the film, a young, surprisingly well-fed and healthy, woman returns from a concentration camp to her rubble of an apartment in Berlin and finds it is occupied by a man. The man is the traumatized ex-soldier refered to above. He is exceedingly unpleasant, yet somehow she falls in love with him (huh?). Through her love, he begins to discover that life might actually be worth living. But no smaltzy Hollywood movie is this. No, he's pretty much a cynical, depressed drunk 99% of the time. At one point, an old man in the story gives the nice young woman some good advice: "It's all well and good to try to save someone, but you should not run headlong into disaster to do it." The soldier eventually meets his old commanding officer who ordered the execution of civilians. Now the proper ending for this film would be for the ex-soldier to murder his ex-commanding officer and then commit suicide. This was indeed the original ending, but the powers that be in 1946 didn't think that was the best message to be putting out there to the public. So instead we get a hokey happy ending about seeking justice not revenge -- which isn't hokey at all except that it is within the context of this film. The film is a bitter, dark and biting commentary on society, war, and religion -- and a happy ending doesn't fit.

Bottom-line: This is one of the more memorable films I've seen for a long time. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in Germany, visiting Germany, or WWII.

Szerelmesfilm (LoveFilm) * * * *

Szerelmesfilm is a 1970s movie from the Hungarian director Istvan Szabo about two childhood friends, later teenage sweethearts, who are separated when Kata, the woman, emigrates to France after the 1956 Hungarian Uprising while Jancsi, the man, stays in Budapest. Of course, in this time, travel to the West was not permitted and it is ten years until he gets permission to visit her in France. The movie is about his visit and trying to sort out his childhood/teenage memories of Kata.

Although a small intimate story, it is ultimately about the generation born in the mid-1930s behind the Iron Curtain. They were children during WWII and grew up in upheaval and tragedy, they were young adults in the Communist era and experienced both the revolts and the resultant oppression, and finally they lived with the disappearances. People had to emigrate in complete secrecy at considerable personal risk. People would wake up one morning and their best friend or brother or aunt would be gone. And they couldn't come back. I suppose anytime that a group of people go through difficult times together, they form a special bond and are left with a feeling that others can't quite understand them. It's a kind of nostalgia -- although we often use that word for pleasant memories. Here it is a nostalgia driven by potent memories and one craves those who were there and went through the same things.

LoveFilm is largely a montage of memories. As Jancsi travels to France and visits with Kata, things he sees remind him of things in his past or memories just jump to mind. This is done very cleverly, and although it's a little muddled at times like memories are wont to be, it's engaging. To me, this felt just like the way memories are – triggered by something one sees or hears or smells, and some memories continually are repeated. Also one latches onto certain images – for Jancsi it is the image of the green backpacks he and Kata wore when they would go down to the cellar during the bombing raids. The two childhood actors that play Joza and Kata are precious and perfectly cast. The two kids get up to some funny antics, and there is a painful for them, but funny to watch, scene where there is a trial of the two by their Young Pioneers troop. They are accused of a) kissing and b) loving each other more than the troop.


Kata and Jancsi with the fish, learning to be doctors.

I recommend it to anyone who
a) enjoys love stories and is looking for something a little different.
b) likes stories about heartwarming kids, such as My Life as a Dog or Kolya.
c) is connected to someone who immigrated – especially someone from this generation.
d) and finally it’s a must see for fans of director Istvan Szabo (Being Julia, Taking Sides, Sunshine, Mephisto)

My epinions review of LoveFilm.

Ucho (The Ear) * * *

1970, Czechoslovakia. A man and his wife are returning home after a late party. They discover that neither has the house keys. They argue. He finally climbs over the garden wall and breaks into the house. What begins as an irritating hassle, evolves into a story of suspicion and panic when they realize that someone has been in the house. Flashbacks to the social gathering earlier that evening piece together the reason for the panic. The man is a high level member of the Communist party. His boss, a minister, had been arrested that very evening by the secret police; a victim of the 'shoot the messenger' reaction when he turned in his report on brickyard closures. As for the couple, while the panic sets in, a picture emerges of a family living precariously in the peak of communist luxury(*) but in an atmosphere of fear within a political world that capriciously promotes people, or strikes them down at will. They assume as a given that their house is bugged and refer often to "The Ear" -- they argue in the bathroom where they can turn on the water and make love on the floor in the kitchen which they calculate is less likely to be bugged than their bedroom. The movie is the story of one psychologically harrowing night, combined with flashbacks to key conversations at the earlier social gathering, as the man tries to sort out what's happening and whether he to is to be picked up and dragged away. Random memories of remarks and incidents become full of meaning and foreboding. Claustrophobic uncertainty builds throughout the movie, and film eventually culminates in an unexpected twist.

Behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War years, moviemaking like all of media was heavily censored by The State. Thus there are few films about the realities of life in the Soviet-controlled socialist countries -- for the obvious reason that within the Eastern bloc, such films could not be made, and outside the Eastern bloc, such topics would not be marketable. But during the 1960s in Czechoslovakia, the director/writer team of Karel Kachyna/Jan Prochazka started making films that pushed the boundaries of what was allowable. They made films that were pessimistic when films had to be optimistic by strict party demands. They followed characters that were not supposed to even exist in socialist Czechoslovakia, such as prostitutes and alcoholics. They told stories involving the dark side of agricultural collectivism and even of WWII partisans. Many of their films were banned upon release. But the miraculous fact that these films were allowed to be completed at all was not so much the result of the easing of the political climate in the mid-1960s, but rather of the fact that ironically Jan Prochazka was an influential member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. He even became a confidante of sorts for the back-then Czechoslovak president Antonin Novotny, in the latter's difficult relations with the rising guild of Czech writers and filmmakers. During the last of 1960s, many reformers like Prochazka had moved upwards in the levels of Czechoslovak society, within and without the Communist Party, and it even seems that the 1968 reform era of Prague Sprign owes in part its existence to Jan Prochazka.

In Ucho, Kachyna/Prochazka point the lens straight at the Communist Party and its leaders. Party members are generally scheming ambitious bullies and the few true idealists who spout about 'socialist principles' seem to be bitter caricatures. The president of the country and the head of its Communist Party is a scary combination of power and stupidity. At one point he says, "Sometimes I even think to myself: 'I don't know anything about any of this.' But then I think: 'I need to make a decision; we can not defeat imperialism by being indecisive.' So I make the decision. And you know, I then tell myself: 'You made a good decision!'" The audience nods and smiles vigorously, 'Comrade is such a good leader!'. Indeed, this film is so scathing towards the Communist Party that it seems unlikely it would have been allowed even in the thawing climate of early 1968.

But this movie was not made in 1968. It was made in 1969/1970 after the Prague Spring was crushed by the "Armies of the Brotherly Nations" (the Warsaw Pact) to protect Czech socialism from counter-revolution. In the aftermath, the Communist Party was purged of reformers -- such as Prochazka. This film is the story of one night during which one of these reform-minded ministers (the man's boss) is purged. "The Ear" was immediately banned on it's release, and Jan Prochazka was banned from further work and died a year later. After his death, use of his unfilmed screenplays was forbidden. "The Ear" was released 20 years later in 1989, after the Velvet Revolution overthrew communism in Czechoslovakia. It stands as a true insider's view of the Community Party behind the Iron Curtain and the associated 'priviledged' life of those as the top of it.

(*) Life for regular people (meaning not in the communist elite) was very spartan behind the Iron Curtain. The shelves in grocery stores were invariably bare. To Western eyes, the life of this couple will appear average middle class. But to Czechoslovaks in 1970, the luxuries that are seen in the film -- roast beef, commercial liquers rather than the homegrown slivovice -- would have been unheard of and not to mention galling.

Rented from Scarecrow Video.
My epinions review of Ucho.

Burnt by the Sun * * * *

Burnt by the Sun is set in the early 1930s in Russia. Stalin took power in the early 1920s after Lenin died. Shortly after the ‘cleansings’ began during which those with ties to the imperialist West, business owners, the middle class and certain ethnic groups were executed, sent to labor camps, or otherwise re-educated. By the 1930s, Stalin began executing his military officers, his right-hand men in the 1920s. He was to carry out two such purges of senior military officers before WWII. This film follows one day in the life of one such military officer, Sergei Kotov.

Sergei has a rare day off at his wife’s family’s dacha (country house). It is restful summer day, full of the things one does with extended family on vacation. A trip to the river for a swim, soccer in the afternoon, getting dressed up for lunch on the patio, reading and telling stories with his daughter, a sauna bath with his wife and child, laughing and lounging.

****spoilers below******

A visitor shows up at the dacha. It is Mitya, a young man who had lived nearby and had spent many happy days at this house, and was once the officer’s wife's lover. That was before she met Sergei, and before Sergei himself sent Mitya for a ‘re-education’, to France to spy for the Soviet Union, some ten years earlier. Sergei was at that time in the NKVD political police (predecesor to the KGB), and Mitya was a 27-year-old who had fought for the White Army and was from a middle class family. Mitya was called in and given the choice of prison/execution or doing the NKVD's bidding. To Sergei, it was simply the way it was. They sent many such young men away.

But now the tables are turned. Mitya is now in the NKVD, and it is Sergei who is on the execution list. We never see this. This film follows Sergei until shortly after he is arrested. But the movie is deeply unsettling, for me almost nauseating. The knowledge that Sergei’s life and his family’s life are going to be destroyed in one fell stroke is terrifying. The sun is warm, the day is lazy, and soon he will be in prison, tortured, forced to sign a confession for ludicrous crimes, and then executed. I feel deeply sympathetic to him in the movie, yet I'm conflicted about such sympathy. This man is a high-ranking officer in the Bolshevik Army, a right-hand man of Stalin. He was involved with the ‘cleansings’ of the early 1920s. Heroic, brave, devoted to his family, but his past is murky.

The Russian Revolution ate its disciples. The title is a reference to this: burnt by the sun. I have often been moved by the stories of young idealist communists – the foot soldiers of the revolution. Not because I sympathized with their ideology, but because they were filled with a great glorious youthful idealism...which created a monster, a snake that brought out the most selfish, oppressive, and intolerant in human nature and then turned on the those idealistic souls that helped bring it to power. Nothing can say it better than the philosophical credo of Krylenko, back-then the soviet commissar (minister) of justice: “We must execute not only the guilty. It is execution of the innocent that will really impress the masses!” He too perished in the Stalin era purges.

Starring: Oleg Menshikov (Mitya), Nikita Mikhalkov (Sergei), Ingeborga Dapkunaite (Marusia), Nadezhda Mikhalkova (Nadya; note she is the daughter of the actor who plays Sergei)

Things you might not know: Nikita Mikhalkov (the guy playing Sergei) is very famous in Russia, as an actor but more as a director. He has been called the 'Speilberg' of Russia. Biography here.

Available on Netflix.