The Zone of Unsubtlety

The Zone of Interest (2023) - Glazer The film starts with a family, a father fishing in the creek with his children. It's peaceful and there's nothing that suggests that he is an SS commandant in charge of operations at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Maybe not nothing, since he has the buzzcut that is most severe as far as cinema memories go, he has to be a nazi. It turns out Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel of Amour Fou, White Ribbon, Babylon Berlin) is indeed a commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp. He and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) and his Aryan children live in a brick and mortar house with a perfectly manicured vegetable and fruit garden, overlooking a barbed wire fence and a very active furnace of the camp. For Heddy, who hated city life, the place is a dream come true, more space, a garden, extensive supply of servants (from the camp), material goods (fur coats and jewelry, also collected from the camp), and fresh air(!) for the children. She touts proudly that she is known as the queen of Auschwitz in her social circle.

The Zone of Interest features great sound design and score. Low rumble of industrial machination (furnace) is always heard, so as frequent muffled screams and gunfires while they dine, sleep and play in the garden. Glazer doesn't let you forget that these banalities of evil are built on power and dominence, that they are not naive people shielded from what's going on just over the fence. They were consciously aware of what they were doing the whole time.

There are some striking sequences, like Höss hurriedly getting his children out of water when a sudden flow of ashes and bones flashfloods the creek they were frolicking in. The swanky garden party features active furnace spewing human ashes in the background just over the fence. And cutting between the past and present days at the end is also very powerful. But as a feature length film, the premise already has overstayed its welcome within thirty minutes of the film.

The miscalculation of the filmmaker here is that obvious visual metaphor doesn't quite work in a serious feature film, especially one about the holocaust. The point Glazer is making, the characters' willful blindness and absurdity and evilness of it, serves much better in shorts. I kept thinking of one of Roy Andersson's masterful absurdist short skits where he balances humor and tragedy perfectly.

The Zone of Interest is an obvious misfire from Glazer. Maybe his craftmanship is more suited for shorts and music videos after all.

Time is a Flat Circle: Temporal Dissonance and Trauma in Christian Petzold’s Transit

Time is a Flat Circle: Temporal Dissonance and Trauma in Christian Petzold’s Dystopian Tale: Transit

        I’m thinking about Nietzsche’s concept of eternal return when I think about Christian Petzold’s film Transit. Eternal return/eternal recurrence is a concept that the universe and all existence and energy have been recurring and will continue to recur, in a self-similar form an infinite number of times across infinite time and space. “Time is a flat circle,” is a phrase uttered by Rust Cohle, a character who has a very pessimistic view on human existence in an HBO show True Detective, when he is reminiscing about an old, unsolved case, “Someone once told me time is a flat circle. Everything we’ve ever done, or will do, we are gonna do all over again.” He is suggesting that we are destined to relive the same experience over and over, past and present melding into one another. And this is the case with Transit which takes place in a hypothetical world where fascist Germany is occupying France once again and its characters, traumatized by the unfolding events, enter into a sort of fugue state where there is no escape.

        All characters in Petzold’s films are in a state of uncertainty: they are forced to embark on a journey by the outside forces, rather than by their own volition like in Wim Wenders films or the works of Novalis or Hölderin of German Romanticism. In effect, the title Transit, can be used in all his films, interchangeably, making it a perfect title that emblemizes his work. With Transit, I’d like to examine how temporal, spatial dissonance causes the lasting trauma in people’s psyche and how Petzold and the Berlin School filmmakers use genre conventions to reflect on the post-wall neoliberal Germany as well as its nazi past.

        Transit is a novel written by Anna Seghers based on her own experience in France under the nazi occupation in 1942. Petzold transposes its setting to contemporary Europe; a modern day Marseille. The film’s setting can be interpreted as either an alternate reality or a very near future where Germany has become a fascist state yet again. But Petzold goes about presenting this slyly, often blurring the boundaries between past and present - there are no discernable historical/cultural markers in the film- no swastikas, propaganda posters or incendiary slogans on banners in public squares. But the motor-vehicles and police in riot gear suggest that the film takes place in the present day. Pinpointing the film’s timeframe is a tricky business. Judging by the conversation held by characters about a movie about zombies- that even the dead not having much imagination by going to a shopping mall, it alludes to taking place post-1978 or even 2004 (the release year of George Romero’s classic Dawn of the Dead and Zach Snyder’s remake respectively). Curiously, there is no sighting of mobile phones anywhere, adding more confusion to the film’s timeline. There are also no lamentations by any of the characters on how history repeats itself. It’s as if Germany’s dark war past has been deliberately erased from history or invoking its history is a taboo subject. Yet for us audiences, hearing the sound of jackboots marching, a talk of ‘cleansing of the Jews’ and seeing police rounding up people in the streets are familiar sight and sound from countless World War II films set in the cities under nazi Germany. Seeing and hearing this in the present setting is jarring and disorienting. There is a definite temporal dissonance. It’s an interesting choice for Petzold to directly invoke Germany’s nazi past to reflect on the current state of Germany and Europe.

        Transit was released in 2018 under the shadow of the foiled assassination plot on the German Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2016 and after the extreme right-wing nationalist party AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) gained 12.6 percent of the seats in the German Parliament in 2017 (later it became the largest opposition party). Germany’s white nationalist movement has seen a steady growth since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. With the influx of over 1.2 million immigrants (not counting 3 million Turkish descent German citizens who have been living there since the 60s), the racial violence against ‘outsiders’- meaning, against people of the Middle-Eastern and African origin as well as German Jews, has been increasing over the recent years. According to the Interior Ministry data, xenophobic acts of violence saw 19.7 percent jump in 2017 from the previous year.

        Christian Petzold, as a leading figure in the Berlin School which is Germany’s most significant film movement since the New German cinema of the 60s and 70s and a prominent voice in a recent surge of German cinema in the global stage, has been making films that reflect the cultural & political landscape and collective German psyche in the post-wall, neo-liberal era Germany. The Berlin School is a term given to a group of loosely connected filmmakers who attended German Film and Television Academy (DFFB) in the late 80s and early 90s, namely Thomas Arslan, Christian Petzold and Angela Schanelec - known as ‘The First Wave’. Ulrich Köhler, Valeska Grisebach, Christoph Hochhäusler, Maren Ade and many more were considered and later added to the growing list of like-minded filmmakers. The main themes these filmmakers share in their work are: loss of identity, guilt, aimlessness and dislocation under neo-liberal Germany. One of the main themes they often deal with is, as Marco Abel puts it, ‘sehnsucht’ (longing): a longing for Germany that has never materialized under neoliberal capitalism. The Berlin School, in effect, is about ‘reseeing’ Germany.

        Utilizing genre conventions and twisting them to reflect on the current state of the post-wall Germany is a tendency of many filmmakers of the Berlin School: Heist films/thrillers/noir are bread and butter for many - The City Below, The Lies of the Victors (Christoph Hochhäusler), In the Shadows (Thomas Arslan), The Robber (Benjamin Heisenberg), The Dreileben Trilogy (Höchhausler, Dominic Graf and Petzold). They also dabbled in Western - Gold (Arslan), horror - Yella (Petzold), Sci-fi - In My Room (Ulrich Köhler) and fantasy - Undine (Petzold), just to name a few. Although many critics emphasized the Berlin School’s presentist and realist approach – the contemporary world observed in almost obsessive detail, Petzold has been deeply concerned with history in various ways throughout his filmography. Especially with his last four output - Barbara (2012) a period film that takes place in East Germany in the 80s, Phoenix (2014), set in the aftermath of WWII, Transit (2018), set in the near future/alternate present where Europe is in the grips of Fascist German regime once again and Undine (2020), his take on folklore/fantasy genre, investigating Berlin’s tumultuous past just underneath the surface of fast changing city, Petzold, unlike most of his compatriots of the Berlin School, does not shy away from Germany’s ugly war past and have found innovative approaches to address the same inquiry through genre conventions the unfulfilled desire of finding a collective utopia that is ‘Deutschland’.

        Gilles Deleuze talks about ‘time out of joint’ in Cinema 2: The Time-Image. It was the Second World War that changed cinema from movement-image to time-image based medium. It signifies that time is no longer subordinated to movement, but rather movement to time. This break happened because of the devastation the war brought: atrocities in situations we no longer knew how to react to, rubbles in spaces we no longer knew how to describe. In these leveled cityscapes, a new race of characters was born: they saw rather than acted- they were seers. Transit starts with Georg (Franz Rogowski) being asked to deliver two letters to Weidel, a writer of some importance in Paris by an acquaintance at the bar. It's a dangerous mission- there are police raids daily and it's harder to get around on the street without constantly being asked for proper papers. Everyone knows a major crackdown is about to happen: already there are people being dragged away in the streets by the heavily armed authorities- 'the purge/cleansing' is just around the corner. But with some money promised, Georg is game. Georg is a typical (anti)hero of the Berlin School films - unmotivated, lost, just going through the motions, like a ghost among his fellow citizens. He is an observer, not a participant. He scoffs at the notion of “danger visa,” when the acquaintance tells him why he can’t make the delivery himself since he is deemed ‘dangerous’. Georg is nobody special. Just a face in the crowd. Petzold makes sure that he is not the narrator of his own story by inserting a voice over of a man, completely unrelated to the main characters, who turns out to be a bartender in Marseille later on. Once Georg gets to Paris, he finds out that the writer has committed suicide, leaving his documents and the latest manuscript behind. With some more money promised, he reluctantly takes a sick man wanted by authority along with him on a train (as stowaways) to Marseilles. Once he gets there, he is to notify the Mexican consulate about the death of the writer. Weidel’s documents reveal that he had a safe passage arranged for him and his wife Marie (Paula Beer) to go to Mexico. The letter Georg was supposed to deliver to Weidel is from Marie, declaring that she is leaving him.

        Once he arrives in Marseilles, Georg assumes the identity of Weidel as he is mistaken for the dead writer at the Mexican Consulate. He makes friends with an Arab immigrant boy whose dad (the sick man) died on the way. He also sees Marie everywhere, scouring the city for Weidel, her husband, day in and day out. Her search is intensified since Georg assumed her dead husband’s identity. So she thinks he is still alive, but avoiding her. This is where Transit embraces a full noir/thriller genre. Petzold’s penchant for genre cinema is pretty well known, as his films often borrow major aspects of their plots from the “cemetery of genre cinema, from the remainders that are still there for the taking.” For example, Jerichow is his adaptation of Jame M. Cain’s pulp noir Postman Always Rings Twice, with the victim switched to a successful small-time Turkish businessman. With Yella, the director takes direct cues from an American b-horror movie Carnival of Souls. In Something to Remind Me and Phoenix, the plots play out like an inverted Vertigo with the loss of identity/false identity playing a big role (also in Transit). His love for the noir/thriller genre is well known; his recent praise of generic American heist thrillers such as Den of Thieves confirms this fact. They are also present in his TV work (Polizeiruf 110), as well as most of his films.

        Transit’s alternate reality fits the description of Deleuze’s modern cinema very well. “As for the distinction between subjective and objective, it also tends to lose its importance, to the extent that the optical situation or visual description replaces the motor action. We run in fact into a principle of indeterminability, of indiscernibility: we no longer know what is imaginary or real, physical or mental, in the situation, not because they are confused, but because we do not have to know and there is no longer even a place from which to ask. It is as if the real and the imaginary were running after each other, as if each was being reflected in the other, around a point of indiscernibility.” Marseille is ‘any-space-whatever’ Deleuze talks about in Cinema II as well. In Transit Marseille is not quite the rubble or empty factories that lay waste in the aftermath of WWII. But it’s not the bustling second largest French city with shops and beaches either. In the film, it is a sparsely populated, lifeless place where lost people in transit converge, waiting to set sail for their new destinies. It is a mere place to pass through. Waiting however, is exactly what these people do which seems eternal. Marie is involved with Richard (Godehard Giese), a doctor who has put his departure on hold because he doesn't want to leave her behind. No one wants to be the one who leaves. These characters are stuck in there, trapped by love, by the sense of loyalty, by guilt. Transit's got a lot to do with guilty conscience: guilt of leaving someone behind. Guilt of forgetting. Guilt of being indifferent. Time seems to stand still in Marseille, as characters run around in circles, day after day, waiting for what they desire that will never materialize, while the ‘cleansing’ is inching closer to them (the rumour has it, the cleansing is happening in nearby Avignon).
         

        ‘Wartender/Waiting’ happens to be the title of Weidel’s last manuscript that Georg carried from Paris to Marseille. It turns out to be a good reflection of what Georg and Marie are experiencing. Out of boredom in transit to Marseille, Georg reads the manuscript and has an opportunity to tell its story to an arrogant consul at the American embassy when asked about his/Weidel’s new book. In this ‘story within a story’, the main character is dead and waiting to register in hell at the gate. The waiting turns from hours to days to weeks to months to years. After many years have passed, the character asks the gatekeeper just when he will be admitted to hell. The gatekeeper tells him, “Why man, this IS hell!” 

        Experiencing any war is painful. Its effect lingers for a long time - maybe for decades, over generations. The American Psychological Association defines trauma as the lingering psychological and emotional response to a singular traumatic event that threatens injury, death, or the physical integrity of self or others and also causes horror, terror, or helplessness at the time it occurs. The French literary giant Marguerite Duras, in an introduction to her memoir with a very literal title- La Douleur/The Pain, culled from her essays and diaries in the occupied France during WWII, as she was involved in the resistance movement and waiting for her husband’s return from a concentration camp, she claims that she doesn’t remember writing those words, "When would I have done so, in what year, at what times of day, in what house? I can't remember." The emptiness left by the absence of her loved one is so great, she would lose herself.

        If there were another title that can encapsulate the theme of all of Petzold’s films other than Transit, it would be ‘ghost’. Some critics grouped three of his earlier films ‘The Ghost Trilogy - The State I am In (2000), Ghosts (2005) and Yella (2007) for portraying characters who have to contend, one way or another, with the economic hardships and invisibility in post-wall neoliberal Germany. But his subsequent works, along with the theme of transient lives, Petzold’s protagonists suffer from loss of identity and invisibility also. Burdened with terrible secrets they can’t reveal, they tread their paths as if on eggshells - like the East German doctor who hides her intentions to defect to the West in Barbara, a disfigured concentration camp survivor who has to go along with her new identity in Phoenix, Georg who assumes the dead man’s identity but can’t reveal his secret in Transit. It might be a different pain: one caused by economic hardship in highly capitalistic society, the other caused by violence of war. But they both make ghosts out of people who experience them. The economic disparities and characters with lost identities in Petzold’s earlier films and many other works by the Berlin School filmmakers can be attributed all the way back to atrocities of the nazi Germany in WWII. Losing oneself, losing one’s identity is deeply entwined with the survivors’ guilt, the guilt of leaving others behind/betraying others. That guilt for those who remember the past, never really went away. They have been the theme of Duras and many of the Nouveau Roman writers as well as all Petzold’s films and many of other directors in the Berlin School.

        Let’s put the film in context of the world events in 2017-18; the Syrian civil war was still raging and the refugee crisis was deepening, Trump enacted the Muslim Ban restricting visas from 7 predominently muslim countries, started to build the wall in the southern border with Mexico, the Israel-Palestine conflict intensified, just to name a few. It is not difficult to see what is reflected in Transit is not far from what’s been happening on the news on TV every night. The future is already here: the film’s premise, the ugly past repeating itself and its temporal dissonance says a lot about the highly advanced capitalist, neoliberal society. The world is moving too fast, while humanity has a little time to reflect on the past. I see Transit as an allegory of Germany’s war past and its citizen’s collective, willful amnesia, caused by the war itself. Hence, the merry-go-round of war - trauma - collective amnesia - war - trauma - collective amnesia being repeated. Suffering from an identity crisis, Georg desperately tries to save Marie while concealing the bitter truth that Weidel is dead and gone all in the midst of fascist takeover: Georg is a stand-in for Germany, Weidel for the utopia that never materialised and Marie for the country’s future/younger generation. Going back to Sehnsucht/longing for the utopian Germany that never was, and regarding Germany’s dark history repeating in Transit, I believe Petzold is telling us that however painful it is, we will have to face the past in order to understand trauma so we don’t repeat it.

Sources Consulted 

1. Abel, Marco. ​The Counter-Cinema of the Berlin School​. Boydell and Brewer, 2013: 1-28, 69-110

2. Chang, Dustin. “I Envision All These Great Small Movies in the Ruins of Hollywood: Chrsitan Petzold Interview, Screen Anarchy, December 12, 2012

https://screenanarchy.com/2012/12/i-envision-all-these-great-small-movies-in-the-ruins-o f-hollywood-christian-petzold-interview.html

3. Deleuze, Gilles. Cinema 2: The Time-Image, University of Minnesota Press, 1989: xi, 1-67

4. Hamann, Hilary Thayer. “A Harsh Tale of War, But Unforgettable Read,” NPR, February 16, 2011

https://www.npr.org/2011/06/29/133811002/a-harsh-tale-of-war-but-an-unforgettable-read

5. Mirthy, Vikram. “Christian Petzold on Transit, Kafka, His Love for Den of Thieves and More,” RogerEbert.com, February 24, 2019

https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/christian-petzold-on-transit-kafka-his-love-for-den-of-thieves-and-more

6. Mudd, Cass. “What the stunning success of AfD means for Germany and Europe,” The Guardian, September 27. 2017

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/24/germany-elections-afd-europe-immigration-merkel-radical-right

7. Staff. “Germany sees extremely alarming rise in racist and anti-semitic hate crime,” The Local, May 14, 2019

https://www.thelocal.de/20190514/germany-sees-extremely-alarming-rise-in-racist-and-anti-semitic-hate-crime

Majesty shmajesty.

A Hidden Life (2019) - Malick

His abstract visual poetry of two previous films that left many of his pre-Tree of Life fans in the cold, Terence Malick is sort of back in a straight narrative world with A Hidden Life. Based on a true story of a farmer named Frantz, a conscientious objector in Nazi Austria during WWII. It is a slim and simple film stretched out for almost 3 hour running time. "Injustice is better being suffered than do", says one of the characters in the film. Frantz believed what is right and couldn't bring up to himself to pledge his loyalty to Hitler. He and his family were ostracized by their community and religious leaders for not conforming. And worse, called traitors. The theme rings resonant now with all the horrors that are happening everywhere in the world. Franz Jägerstätter was deified by Pope Benedict XVI (yes that pope who called it quit) into sainthood. His portrait of nature and that of a higher power is admirable. And it's beautiful in its Malickian way as usual. The Austrian Alps is breathtaking in his wide-angle cinematography (by German cinematographer Jörg Widmer). A Hidden Life should be seen on the big screen to experience its majesty.

I admire Malick's world view and his philosophy in general and his use of it in his beautifully photographed, elegant films. But we know that the world we live in now is not that simple. Evils of the world is not that cleanly and conveniently defined. It is not anyone's fault but ours that we live in a complicated society where morality is as murky as milk in tea. Malick's world view, that of the boomers, is nostalgia ridden, black and white world of yesteryears. And clocking at 172 minutes, it's way too long even with all the pretty pictures.

More Human than Human

Strayed (2003) - Techiné



At first, this WWII drama progresses exactly the way it is supposed to be - a young pretty mother (Emmanuelle Béart) fleeing the war with her two children hooking up with a good looking, resourceful young man (Gaspard Ulliel) shacked up in a large abandoned mansion and playing family. A typical war time soap opera. Oooh la la. But Andre Techiné is a true master observer of subtle human emotions. People do unexpected things. Their actions defy their supposed roles. The intricacy of attractions between the two are much more complex than just primal or even logical. Strayed subtly, beautifully treads all these preconceived notions and have these beautiful feelings, desires and mutual understandings play out. Béart and Ulliel are superb in this.

Children of War

The Notebook (2013) - Szász

Loss of innocence and humanity during war times through the eyes of children has its shares of cinematic treatment over the years. Based on a prize winning novel of the same name, Hungarian director János Szász adds The Notebook/Le Grand Cahier to that list. It's a WWII drama that has a darker, much more sinister tone in reflecting human survival than, say, Steven Spielberg's JG Ballard adaptation, Empire of the Sun (1987), starring baby Christian Bale.

The film tells a story of young twin brothers (played by András and Lázló Gyémánt), singularly known only as bastards by their cruel grandmother who reluctantly takes the boys into her care in her rural farm. It was their parents' decision. They thought the kids would have a better chance in surviving the war there than staying in their opulent home in Budapest. They quickly learn that life at the farm is no picnic. They have to earn their meals and lodging. They also give up the hope that their loving mother will come back to fetch them soon. Completely cut off from the world and lacking any kind of adult supervision, the boys retreat into their own world full of strict rules and structures. Their only moral guide is the bible (the only book they have) and a blank notebook which they fill up with everything they experience.

After a Nazi camp moves in next to grandma's property, and witnessing people's suffering and cruelty, morality of the twins becomes warped, as they concentrate on 'punishing the wicked'. Armed with the grenades they found on a dead soldier in the woods, the boys train to be physically strong and cruel - they whip and punch each other until they bleed, kill bugs and small animals. In their minds, these are the things they have to do to survive.

They have occasional contacts with other people: a harelipped girl who teaches them how to steal, a Jew-hating blonde maiden whom they have their first sexual encounter with, a dirty priest whom they blackmail and a Nazi officer (played by always dependable Danish actor Ulrich Thomsen) who take interests on the twins who seem to finish each other's sentences and don't seem to be afraid of anything.

The most chilling moment in Spielberg's tearjerker Empire of the Sun comes after Jim gets released from the internment camp, telling the grownups that he can no longer remember his parents' faces. In The Notebook, the twins' parents come back (albeit separately), only to get the coldest, most unthinkable receptions from the boys who not only have lost their youth, but their humanity as well.

The young Gyémánt brothers, playing the leads are revelations here. Their disarming sweet smile can just as quickly be replaced by bone-chilling, evil stares. Their portrayals of young boys' scary descent into deeply-scarred-sociopaths-in-the-making is never melancholic but endlessly fascinating. The Notebook plays out like a grimmest of the Grimms' fairytale.

Imbued with elements from JG Ballard, Spirits of the Beehive, Lord of the Flies and even Dead Ringers, the film tells how the ultimate survival instincts kick into gear when faced with horrific, soul crushing nature of war.

Winner of Karlovy Vary Film Fest 2013, The Notebook opens in NY and LA on Aug 29th. National roll out will follow.

The Wind Rises...We Must Live

The Wind Rises (2013) - Miyazaki

'Follow your dream' is the theme of The Wind Rises, the latest, decidedly grownups oriented film by master Hayao Miyazaki. The setting is different too. It's the 1920s-30s Japan: The Great Kanto Earthquakes, The Great Depression, unemployment, poverty and tuberculosis. It's also politically very pointy. From early on, we see a boy's tranquil dreams of flying get overshadowed by ominous war planes adorned with Nazi crosses and Italian flags. There are talks of thought police following engineers. Based on the real life character who ended up designing the Zero fighter plane, the main character Jiro grows up to be an idealistic engineer who dreams of creating a beautiful aeroplane in the midst of national turmoil. But as usual, he is as generous and selfless and heroic as any other Miyazaki protagonists. There is a love story there too, albeit a sad one. Jiro and Nahoko meet during the fateful earthquake and fate would have it, meet up again later on. Nahoko is suffering from tuberculosis and frequents a sanitarium to recuperate.

We all know Miyazaki's completely capable of creating exciting battle scenes. It seems he greatly strains himself from portraying any kind of man-made violence in The Wind Rises. There is a poignant scene where Jiro walks through the graveyard of wrecked planes: the horror of broken dreams. Some of the stylistic choices and especially innovative sound design separates the film from his previous ones too. Mostly the color palette of The Wind Rises is more like sunny impressionist paintings. The title comes from Paul Valéry's poem and characters quote it in French. The complete line is: "The wind is rising...we must attempt to live." The country still reeling from The Great Eastern Japan Earthquake, Miyazaki at once finds parallels in the past and also don't shy away from criticizing Japan's military ambitions. It's definitely the saddest Miyazaki movie I've ever seen. As he announced his retirement, The Wind Rises is a fitting finale of the one whose remarkable carrier not only serves him the title of a master filmmaker, but a true humanist.

The Wind Rises plays part of this year's New York Film Festival. Please go to FSLC website for tickets and showtimes.

"I Hate Irresponsible People!"

Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (1987) - Hara

Crazy. Kenzo Okuzaki is a dedicated man. He is a 62-year old fiery WWII vet who wouldn't stop for anything to get confessions out of his interviewees in what happened in New Guinea at the end of the war. He is the first one to tell you that he spent 13 years in prison for murdering a former army officer and taking pot shots at Emperor Hirohito. Driving around in a van with anti-war/anti-emperor slogans, armed with loud speakers, Okuzaki is one of those slightly demented, intimidating and certainly dangerous characters who you don't want to confront in real life. He hates irresponsible people and he hates Hirohito who he deems as responsible for thousands of soldier's needless death in the war.

Everyone he interviews has different versions or is holding out on the truth. After much coaxing and physical altercations, he finds out the ugly truth- how starving soldiers were resorted to cannibalism- dark meat (Natives), white meat (American soldiers) but also among themselves (troublemakers and selfish ones). For many, they just want to forget that they were ever involved in that shameful time, 40 years ago. Let the sleeping dogs lie. But for Okuzaki, confronting them and holding them accountable (with violence if necessary) is his mission in life. The postscript says he shot a son of the captain who ordered the execution of the two soldiers who were charged with desertion. Hara just lets his subject talk and act, never interfering with whatever's happening on the screen. Utterly compelling and unforgettable.

Children of the Damned

The White Ribbon (2009) - Haneke




Masterful. I know I'm quite late in the game with this one. Haneke's examination of how the entire generation of people can be capable of atrocity or turn the blind eye to it is as complex as the history it is contextualizing. Think of it as Children of the Damned without being ironical or allegorical. It's deeper than that. There are definitely the economical disparity and religious hypocrisy at play in The White Ribbon. But what's most striking in the film is the attitude of grown ups not accepting the possibility of 'innocence' not existing. It is chilling because Haneke's view can be applied to any time period. But he suggests in the scene where the youngest son of the pastor presents the distraught man of God with his prized sparrow, that kids are not inherently evil. But do we start persecuting children when they reach 11? Where do we draw the line? Haneke doesn't give us easy answers and there are a lot to mull over. Perhaps the subtlest of all his films, White Ribbon is a lean, unblinking filmmaking at its best.

The Awful Truth in Pretty Pictures

Lore (2012) - Shortland

After her well-received debut feature Summersault (2004), a small indie film about a young woman's sexual awakening that launched the careers of Abbie Cornish and Sam Worthington, directing a WWII drama in Germany with all German cast is a curious choice for Aussie director Cate Shortland. But It's Shortland's knack for portraying a budding female's physical and mental struggle that connects the two films. Newcomer Saskia Rosendahl plays the red-lipped perfect Nazi youth whose world is shaken after finding out her parents' roles in the death of millions.

It's 1945. Hitler's dead. Hannalore (Rosendahl) and her four young siblings are left to fend for themselves after their Nazi parents are imprisoned. Having been informed that there is a relative living in Hamburg, the children set out on foot from their opulent mansion deep in the Barbarian mountains to an unknown, scary world. Things get hairy quickly as they run out of food (and milk for the baby) and shelter.

They team up with a suspicious young man, Thomas (Kai Malina), who crosses their path. Lore's younger siblings take a shine on him but she can't let her guard down. Germany is divided into zones with road blocks everywhere. Thomas, who may or may not be a death camp survivor, uses his street smarts to help Lore and her siblings to get to the British zone (because Soviets hate Germans, they were told). There is an obvious sexual tension between Lore and Thomas.

Rosendahl's typical Aryan beauty is accentuated by blissful cinematography, used effectively here as she gets battered, dirtied up and sun-blistered. There is a certain Grimm's fairytale quality to Lore's journey, with many grown up monsters in the woods waiting to pounce on a frightened little girl. The film makes a point of the war robbing one's childhood, that there are victims on both sides, several times. But thanks to beautifully balanced direction and great performances, the cliché-prone material never comes across as a didactic bore.

Lore opens February 8 in New York and Los Angeles and gets wide releases in March. Check the Music Box Films website for more information.