Due to much rl business in February and early March, followed by a severe cold, I missed out on a lot of movies in the cinema, but have been finally able to watch two of them.

Black Panther: very enjoyable adventure movie. Its victory at the box office, annihilating (one hopes) the bias that a block buster with a nearly all black cast (and the two "Tolkiien White Guys", as I hear they're called, which is hilarious, are in minor supporting roles) mainly set outside the US, with the female roles (wise cracking tech wizard, seasoned warrior of the realm, spy) being exactly the type that usually go to the male cast) - that a movie can do this and get in easily as much cash as the nearly all white, one or two token women blockbusters of yore is deeply gratifying. It would be in any case on general principle, but this is also a well crafted film, great cinematography, and it manages to juggle a pretty huge ensemble without the audience getting confused as to who is who.

Now, I'd be be faking it if I said was so profoundly emotionally moved as many of the people in my circle appeared to have been. I liked the movie; I liked the characters, I really appreciate that the movie at no point botheres with a "...for a woman" type of compliment for its fabulous female characters, who are all distinct from each other, the high tech Utopia which has to wonder what the responsible thing to do when faced with the many miseries of the world is being an African country makes for a great theme with many lines of dialogue feeling like commentary on our here and now (I'm thinking of W'Kabi's and T'Challa's exchange re: helping refugees versus military intervention in particular, and of course T'Challa's big speech in the mid-credit scene). But I think one reason why I never quite made the leap from liking the film to loving it was that T'Challa, our hero, fel tmore interesting and compelling to me in his debut as a supporting character in Civil War than he does here in his own movie. This may be partly because he's surrounded by such a great ensemble of colourful characters, or because his own storyline is the most traditional/predictable thing about the whole movie. (This is something almost inevitable if you're the main character in this type of story, to be fair.) But there it is. I hasten to clarify that "didn't find him as interesting here as in CW" does not equal "didn't like him" - I liked him! I promise! I just liked several of the other characters more. This being said, some spoilery T'Challa related observations (all positive in nature, though not all serious):

( Spoilers freeze like an antelope )

Fannish osmosis already indicated to me that Shuri is basically the new Darcy (from Thor, not from Pride and Prejudice) in terms of fan favouritism, and she's as great as advertised, will hopefully remain a presence in subsequent Marvel movies. I liked how basically angst-free the relationship between Nakia and T'Challa was. Her and Okoye having a different initial response to the spoilery event leading into the movie's third act didn't feel like it was simply because of their respective different relationships to T''Challa but mainly because of their different concepts of what loyalty/duty to one's country meant, which I dug.

Though it didn't escape me the film otherwise avoids a problem with its basic concept, which is, in two words: absolute monarchy. With the succession (potentially) decided by ritual combat. That's fine for fantasy worlds, but if the world building is supposed to resemble the present (plus superpowers and aliens), it becomes trickier. Now you could argue that the key event at the end of the second act already demonstrates a problem with that principle, i.e. the movie textually points it out, but: not imo not really. ( Spoilers wonder what Wakandans not into martial arts but into politics think of it all? )

That nitpick aside: I hope for more in this particular corner of the MCU. This was a splendid entry.

One more Marvel thing: you can still sign up for ssrconfidential, the Agent Carter ficathon, here. Writing about Peggy and friends has proved great fun to me in recent years, and I'm glad I'll have one more chance.


Das schweigende Klassenzimmer ("The Silent Class Room")

This movie was directed by Lars Kraume, whose previous movie Der Staat gegen Fritz Bauer (The People vs Fritz Bauer) was one of my favourite movies of 2015; looks like this new one has a good chance of becoming one of my favourites in 2018. The title is both an accurate description of a key event and a play on the title of one of Erich Kästner's most popular books, Das fliegende Klassenzimmer ("The Flying Class Room">, and the story, which actually happened, has a distinctly Kästnerian flavour.

Like Der Staat gegen Fritz Bauer, Das schweigende Klassenzimmer is set in Germany in the late 50s, only in this case East Germany, and it shares some themes; the injustices of the system, courage and conscience against overwhelming odds. In 1956, five years before the Berlin Wall was built, it was still possible for East Germans to cross over legally, and at the start of the movie, two school boys (our heroes, Kurt and Theo) do just this in order to watch a "daring" movie in West Berlin. (Meaning: a movie where there is supposedly female nudity.) Back then, newsreeels still preceeded the main event, and thus Theo and Kurt catch a report about the Hungarian Uprising (and its impending crushing by Soviet Forces). This, once they're back home, leads to some more illegal radio listening, and finally the boys and their entire class (which is mixed, female and male students together, and is the Abiturjahrgang, meaning they're preparing for their final degrees which will qualify them for university), stunned by events in Hungary, decide to observe one minute of silence in memory of the Hungrarian dead in protest.

To say this backfires in their faces is putting it mildly. One great thing about the movie is that the motivations for the original protests are mixed, and not all act out of sympathy for the Hungarian revolt; some do it for the hell of it, or because of peer pressure, or because a (as it turns out, wrong) report said among the dead was a football hero of theirs. But as the punishments and investigations escalate, until even the secretary for education (Burkhard Klaussner, who played the heroic Fritz Bauer in the previous movie, here in an absolutely chilling role) shows up and the state comes down with all its might on a couple of teenagers. Who are just young and idealistic enough to refuse to back down, and so indignant about the threatened beyond all proportion punishment and the pressure to denounce each other that despite internal tensions and them at the start not all acting for politics, they maintain solidarity to each other. (And being East German students, they can't plead the fifth when pressured in every way the adults can think of to name names, someone who can be blamed for the entire "counter-revolutionary" activity. Early on, one student confidentally declares they can't very well kick out the entire class, and it will all be fine and soon forgotten if they just stick together. Think again, student.)

A group of teenagers standing up to say "This is not right" and getting failed and vilified by the adults around them in varying degrees makes some contemporary associations inevitable, which Lars Kraume couldn't know about when he shot the movie. As in his West German tale, the fact that this is the late 50s the Third Reich is just a decade away is relevant. All the adults are in varying degrees broken. Even the most frightening character, the Secretary of Education, has a past as a Communist resistance fighter which left him with literal scars as well as a deformed (or just too fitting-the-bureaucracy formed) personality. Then there's the almost desperate belief that this is the socialist utopia which just has to get through its early difficulties which is shared by a great many of the characters, adults and students alike. Theo is the first of his family to go to grammar school, and to have a chance at Abitur and at university, and as the school director, who comes from a similar worker's background, points out, neither of them would have had the chance in the past.

Despite Theo (whose father participated in the workers' uprising of 1953, got punished and is now desperately grateful to have a job at all and does not want to see his son fail) and Kurt (whose father is a local city councillor, which is one reason of several why it's Kurt who has the initial idea for the silent minute) being the main characters, this is also an ensemble movie, and several of the other students get narrative attention and characterisation as well, like Lena (in something of a triangle situation with Kurt and Theo and the first one to really get the political implications), Paul (whose uncle Edgar is a kind of mentor figure and the source of their illegal radio listening; Edgar is also homosexual, which is another overlapping theme from the Fritz Bauer movie, because East German society in the 1950s isn't a wonder of acceptance either), and Erik (whose father died in the concentration camp Sachsenhausen, which has informed Erik's entire world view and will be used horribly against him by the authorities later). Among the adults, we have in addition to Edgar Kurt's parents, Theo's parents, school director Schwarz (who isn't without sympathy for the students, but definitely not willing to stand up for them, either, once the next highest authority has been notified), the Kreisschulrätin Mrs. Kessler (that would be the next highest authority, a one woman good cop/bad cop commando) and the above mentioned minister.

The movie is set at Eisenhüttenstadt, or, as it was called then (truly!), Stalinstadt, which, as the "first socialist town in Germany" was only created in 1953 (out of a conglomerate of settlings) as a socialist model city, with train trips to Berlin, and filmed on location. The soundtrack is unabashedly emotional, which fits with the young main characters. Who are a believable bunch of teenagers, none of them perfect - or stereotypes -, and all of them passionate. The previous generation's original sin, whether they kept their heads down, were Nazis, or were on the contrary Communists, was, as the movie reveals more and more, all giving in to the urge to save themselves at the expense of others. And this is the test these youngsters now face. It's not just history. I really hope it will be shown in your part of the world, too; l loved it.


The trailer:

Among other things, this is a movie llustrating to me how we can watch utterly different movies, because I came back from viewing it enthusiastically, googled reviews, found that most German reviewers were also enthused but the one English language review from when the movie was shown at the film festival in Toronto this year was scathing (to the point of willfully misconstructing what was actually shown on screen, thought I when reading it). However, in my own review I'll try to keep my impressions of the movie separate from a few remarks re: the English language review (which was by the Hollywood Reporter).

First of all, a word about the title and the history: this is on of the cases where a good translation actually loses one point the movie makes. The literal translation would have been "The State versus Fritz Bauer", but that's not how you phrase it in English, I know. However given the content of the movie (very much a J'Accuse about the 1950s German justice system) it would have been more fitting. So, who was Fritz Bauer? You can read a short biographical article about him here. To put even more briefly: German-Jewish, started out as young Social Democrat at the eve of the Weimar Republic, spent a brief time in a camp right at the beginning but got out and emigrated to Denmark, returned post Third Reich to Germany, ended up District Attorney of Hessen, key figure in tracking down Adolf Eichmann (though this became known only a decade after his death - I'll get to the reason why later), key figure and primary mover of the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials of the 1960s. The 1950s German justice system, like the 1950s German police forces, had a depressing (though unsurprising) lot of old Nazis in it; Fritz Bauer was one of the few exceptions, and not just an exception but an heroic figure who tirelessly strove against the general 1950s Let's-brush-it-under-the-carpet-and-move-on attitude and made the 1960s start of what we call Vergangenheitsbewältigung in German - i.e. confrontation with (specifically the Nazi) past - possible.

He was also gay. This didn't just make him a target for the Nazis in a third capacity (in addition to being a Social Democrat and a Jew), but continued to make him a target in the 1950s, where the infamous paragraph 175 of German law (which hadn't been created by the Nazis, it was invented in 1872, but they had made it even worse by outlawing even mutual masturbation between two males) was still in full effect. (Sidenote: the paragraph in its entirety wasn't abolished until 1994, though it was reformed in 1969, which got rid of the Nazi addendums, and even more altered in 1973, at which point "only"' underage gay sex remained illegal until 1994. This is why "a 175" for decades was slang for "homosexual"; the term has gone out of use entirely by now.)

Now another movie might have treated Bauer's sexuality as a side issue, or eliminated it entirely, while presenting a conventional "early setback, eventual triumph at court" feelgood dramatic structure. Der Staat gegen Fritz Bauer, however, not only makes this aspect an important point but also makes its most important supporting character, the young state attorney Karl Angermann, gay as well. Now Angermann is fictional, or rather, a composite of various young attorneys working for Bauer, but I think inventing him was fully dramatically justified. Not solely because it relieves Fritz Bauer (who during his exile in Denmark had trouble with the Danish police for picking up male prostitutes a couple of times, but in post war Germany seems to have lived celibate) from being the only gay character (and thus having to represent all), but it creates situations where being gay in 1950s Germany can be discussed believably. Not to mention it gives us a movie whose main characters are gay without being involved with each other but are busy striving to bring Nazis to justice. Can you think of another example? And the mentor/protegé relationship that developes between Bauer and Angermann is affectionate, great to watch and hits all my loyalty buttons.

Another out of the expected choice the movie makes is not to focus on the 1960s Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials, i.e. Bauer's greatest hour. (There's another German movie released earlier this year who deals with the Auschwitz trials, Im Labyrinth des Schweigens.) Instead, it focuses on the hunt-for-Eichmann 1950s years. Fritz Bauer understandably and probably correctly suspected that if he told the BKA (our version of the FBI) about where Eichmann was once he'd gotten a key lead, they'd warn him. (70% of the BKA in the 1950s were old Nazis; the first head of the BKA who'd never been a Nazi but had been a leftist in his youth instead was Horst Herold, who didn't get appointed until 1971, not coincidentally by Willy Brandt, himself a former exile Social Democrat like Bauer had been, who was dead by then.) So Bauer contacted the Mossad instead, which was technically treason (i.e. for a government official to conspire with a foreign government's secret service). However, he also planned to push for extradition once Eichmann had been captured because he wanted to put Eichmann on trial in Germany. Not solely because of Eichmann himself, but because of the need to confront all the former Nazis Eichmann would name with their past and to destroy the 1950s lie that it had been solely Hitler and a few dedicated followers who'd been responsible. No big spoiler to say this wasn't how it worked out historically. So the movie ends on an ambigous note for Bauer: one of his most important goals - finding Adolf Eichmann and bringing him to justice - has been accomplished, but not in the way he hoped it would be; he's still surrounded by a lot of smug former Nazis, and while he has managed to reach some young people with his exhortation to confront the past in order to create a better Germany, he gets hate mail and death threats from others on a regular basis. ( And something spoilery for the movie though not history also happened. ) So instead of providing its hero with a conventional triumph at the end, the film sees his heroism lying in the fact that he decides to continue the struggle at a low-with-one-silver-lining point. ( Spoilerly last scene described. )

Fritz Bauer is played by Burgart Klaußner, who is fantastic in the part. Also eerily like the genuine article, complete with Swabian accent (Bauer wasn't from Hessen originally but from Württemberg); the movie has the chuzpe to open with a tv clip of real Fritz Bauer talking, and there is no suspension of disbelief necessary when we meet Klaußner!Fritz Bauer next. His appearance isn't prettified like so many historical characters are when played by actors; he's an old man with stocky figure and a temper. Plus, you know, it's not paranoia when they're really after you. (Just imagine being a Jewish survivor getting hate mail and death threats in 1950s Germany. In case you're wandering why Bauer ever came back or why once he realised what it would be like he didn't emigrate - and you can read the question on the face of the Mossad guys once he contacts them -: he was a patriot in the best sense of the term, someone for whom patriotism didn't mean glorification of one's country at the expense of others but the type of love that wants the country to become better which can only happen via acknowledging and atoning for the horrors of the past.) Bauer is prickly for the best of reasons, and has hours of depression, but his few attachments are fierce, and Klaußner does such a lot with his facial expression alone. Karl Angermann is played by Ronald Zehrfeld, who does a good job with an arc where he doesn't just struggle with his sexuality early on (he's married and Catholic) but also with how to be a decent human being when he has to represent a justice system which is directed against people of his own orientation. (Early in the movie, he's the state attorney who has to prosecute in a 175 case; that's when he first very carefully asks Fritz Bauer for advice.) Our two main villains, Gebhard the BKA guy and Kreidler the state attorney, are played by Jörg Schüttauf and Sebastian Blomberg respectively. More about them when I address the criticism by the English language review, but when I say "main villains" I have to add immediately that the movie makes it very clear they're but two of many and the entire system is (still) largely rotten. It also never loses sight of the larger context: in the later 1950s, Adenauer era Germany wasn't just emerging as an economic power again due to the Wirthschaftswunder but was seen as an essential part of NATO in the Cold War. The US was extremeliy uninterested in destabilizing Adenauer's government, which contained one very prominent former Nazi, Hans Globke (he who wrote the commentary of the Nuremberg Race Laws). Thus, the interest in tracking down Eichmann, Bormann et al (or to prosecute the less prominent but no less vile people still active and working) was at an all time low not solely within the Adenauer government but also by the Allies. (By anyone other than Israel, really.) It's that indifference even more than the occasional hate mail which makes life so hard for Fritz Bauer, who is haunted by the one time in his life as a young man where he bowed to tyranny (signing a subjugation letter in order to get out of that camp, which was then published by the Nazi press).

Female characters: not many: Bauer is married but lives separated from his wife who remained in Denmark (their marriage in 1943 was mainly so he'd avoid deportation), so we never meet her, or his much loved sister (also still in Denmark), though we hear her on the phone when Bauer in an hour of fear and depression calls her. There's his secretary, but she doesn't get characterisation beyond "devoted secretary". And Karl Angermann's wife, who clearly is frustrated with their marriage (without knowing the truth), but doesn't screen time or characterisation beyond that, either. The state attorneys working for Bauer are all male, as are the BKA people, which sadly is historically accurate. But this isn't a movie where "does it pass the Bechdel test?" is a question that's key to its worth.

Cinematography: director Lars Krauma hails from tv, and it shows. Also he only had a tiny budget. No sweeping shots of Frankfurt,Wiesbaden or Buenos Aires, or mass scenes; he goes for the Kammerspiel approach of small rooms and few characters, which btw works with the claustrophobic feel of 1950s Germany. Any and all 1950s pop songs are avoided in favour of jazz for the soundtrack - and three chansons in the drag bar Karl Angermann visits a couple of times later in the movie. The jazz was a smart choice, imo; it conveys Bauer's feeling of outsiderness in an determinedly "let's have our economic miracle now, shut up about the unpleasant past already" society.

And now for a brief discussion of the Hollywood Reporter bashing review.

( Read more... )

In conclusion: I was moved and impressed by this film. I hope you'll get the chance to watch it as well.