Costa-Gavras presents evil in so matter-of-fact away that you find knots tightening in your stomach as you draw breath. The film is about the Holocaust; more precisely it is about the role the Catholic Church played in not condemning the extermination of the Jews. A decent SS Officer, Kurt Gerstien, becomes aware of what is happening. He is a good German in that he loves his country but despises what Hitler is doing. He believes that if the Pope knows about the extermination of the Jews he will be duty bound to speak out and so he tells a young Jesuit who is close to the Holy Father. But we know the Church chose diplomacy and the Holy Father's failure to condemn the death camps remains one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the Catholic Church.
The horrors are hammered home, though Costa-Gavras knows that what is left to our imagination is infinitely more horrifying than what we see and the early sequence where Gerstien first becomes aware of the gas chambers is genuinely distressing, (the horrors that follow don't measure up). As a film it is overly literate, (based as it is on a play by Rolf Hochhuth), obvious and at times heavy-handed but the material is so powerful you can't help but be moved. And Ulrich Tukur is magnificent as Gerstien. It is a deeply complex study in what might be perceived as moral ambiguity and Tukur plays it beautifully. Costa-Gavras filmed it in English and critics didn't take to it, (and it wasn't widely seen), but even if it feels forced and at times unlikely, it demands our attention.
The horrors are hammered home, though Costa-Gavras knows that what is left to our imagination is infinitely more horrifying than what we see and the early sequence where Gerstien first becomes aware of the gas chambers is genuinely distressing, (the horrors that follow don't measure up). As a film it is overly literate, (based as it is on a play by Rolf Hochhuth), obvious and at times heavy-handed but the material is so powerful you can't help but be moved. And Ulrich Tukur is magnificent as Gerstien. It is a deeply complex study in what might be perceived as moral ambiguity and Tukur plays it beautifully. Costa-Gavras filmed it in English and critics didn't take to it, (and it wasn't widely seen), but even if it feels forced and at times unlikely, it demands our attention.