Das Leben der Anderen (5 Stars)

Some films are slow because not very much happens. Others are slow because they have something more important to do than keep the story moving. "Das Leben der Anderen"  (engl. "The Lives of Others") belongs firmly in the second category.

Set in East Germany in the 1980's, the film takes us into the world of the Stasi, but what makes it different from many other films about life in the DDR is that we don't see the Stasi purely from the point of view of its victims. We spend a great deal of time with the people doing the watching.

Captain Gerd Wiesler is assigned to monitor playwright Georg Dreyman and his girlfriend, the actress Christa-Maria Sieland. Wiesler listens to their conversations, observes their private lives and reports anything that might be considered suspicious. At first he is simply doing his job. He believes in the system and has no apparent difficulty with what he is doing.

But then, gradually, something changes.

And it's not only Wiesler. One of the film's great strengths is that the Stasi isn't represented as one-dimensional. There are people who genuinely believe in what they are doing, people who are simply following orders, people interested in their careers and people prepared to abuse their position for their own personal purposes. The machinery of the state is made up of human beings, and that makes it considerably more disturbing.

The film is wonderfully atmospheric. There are no car chases, explosions or unnecessary attempts to manufacture excitement. The tension comes from people talking in rooms while somebody else is listening. A pause, a glance or a change in someone's voice can be more suspenseful than an action sequence.

It's obvious to compare it with other films about the DDR and the Stasi, films such as "Wie Feuer und Flamme" and "Der Rote Kakadu", but "Das Leben der Anderen" approaches the subject from a different direction. Those films show us what it was like to live under the system. This one takes us inside the system itself.

And that's what makes it so fascinating.

The performances are excellent, particularly Ulrich Mühe as Wiesler. He manages to say an enormous amount without saying very much at all. You can almost see his thoughts changing as he listens to the people he has been ordered to spy on.

It's a beautifully controlled film. Nothing is rushed and very little is overstated. Even when the story becomes deeply emotional, it doesn't resort to melodrama. The film trusts the audience to understand what is happening.

And then comes the ending. It's one of those endings that doesn't need a grand speech or an emotional explanation. A small gesture says everything.

"Das Leben der Anderen" is a brilliant film. It takes its time, but that's precisely why it works. The atmosphere, the performances and the gradual transformation of its characters are far more important than action or pace.

Some films are about what happens.

This is a film about what happens inside people.

Success Rate:  + 36.7

Die Hard 5 (2 Stars)

Die Hard 5, also known as A Good Day to Die Hard (2013), is the point at which the franchise finally loses its grip on what once made it special. While the first four films stretch plausibility to varying degrees, they all understand the core appeal of John McClane; a stubborn, vulnerable man surviving chaos through wit, pain and bloody-minded resilience. The fifth film forgets this almost entirely.

The most obvious problem is tone. The earlier films balance spectacle with humour and tension, allowing McClane to react to danger rather than dominate it. Here, the film embraces a generic modern action aesthetic; hyperactive editing, anonymous explosions and weightless destruction. The sense of geography that defined Nakatomi Plaza, Dulles Airport or even the internet-age Manhattan of Live Free or Die Hard is absent. Moscow becomes a blur of collapsing buildings and car chases with no spatial logic, making it hard to feel either excitement or suspense.

John McClane himself is also diminished. In the first four films, Bruce Willis plays him as exhausted, sarcastic and often outmatched. Pain matters; injuries slow him down and bad decisions have consequences. In Die Hard 5, McClane is virtually indestructible, shrugging off crashes and gunfire like a superhero. The wisecracks remain, but they feel hollow because the character is no longer under real threat. Without vulnerability, McClane stops being relatable and becomes just another action archetype.

The introduction of his son, Jack McClane, should have refreshed the formula, yet it does the opposite. Their relationship is sketched in the broadest strokes, relying on clichéd father-son conflict rather than earned emotion. Jai Courtney's Jack is competent but bland; he lacks the charisma to carry half the film and his CIA backstory further pushes the series away from its original premise of an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances. The franchise has always flirted with spy-movie excess, but this instalment dives headfirst into it.

Villains have also been a strength of the series, from Alan Rickman's elegant Hans Gruber to Jeremy Irons' mischievous Simon. Die Hard 5 offers antagonists who are forgettable and poorly motivated, with a plot that hinges on convoluted double-crosses involving uranium, files and political corruption. The story feels more like rejected Bond material than a "Die Hard" film, and none of it gives McClane a personal or thematic stake in the outcome.

Ultimately, A Good Day to Die Hard misunderstands the franchise it belongs to. The first four films, even when uneven, are built around tension, character and a clear sense of place. The fifth replaces these with noise, speed and scale, mistaking excess for excitement. It is not just weaker than its predecessors; it feels disconnected from them, as if John McClane has wandered into the wrong film altogether.

Success Rate:  + 1.3

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Unknown (5 Stars)

This is one of the most exciting films I've ever seen. It's a perfect mix of action, suspense and mystery. I can't believe that I've waited 13 years before watching it again. How could I forget a film like this?

Dr. Martin Harris, an American biotechnology professor played by Liam Neeson, travels to Berlin with his wife for a scientific conference. On arriving at the hotel he realises that he forgot to pick up one of his suitcases from the airport, so he leaves his wife behind to take a taxi back to the airport. On the way he's involved in a traffic accident and is in a coma for four days. He returns to the hotel as quickly as possible. His wife doesn't recognise him. She's in the company of another man who claims to be her husband. He can't prove who he is because he lost all his papers in the accident. The stranger doesn't just have papers to prove who he is, he also knows all about his scientific work.

Eventually Martin begins to think he's crazy and returns to the hospital for treatment, but while he's there someone tries to kill him, and even kills the nurse who tries to protect him. This makes him sure that something is happening, so he hires a private detective to prove that he really is who he thinks he is.

Although the film is in English, most of the cast are top German actors such as Bruno Ganz, Sebastian Koch and Diane Kruger. This is a brilliant film, and the final explanation will come as a a total surprise. The viewers will also feel the terror of being lost in a foreign country with no identification and being denied by your wife and friends.

Success Rate:  + 2.5

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Gloomy Sunday (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #84

This German-Hungarian film, made in 1999, tells the story of the song "Gloomy Sunday", commonly referred to as the Hungarian Suicide Song. The song is real, but the film tells a fictional story wrapped around it. Many details are (deliberately) inaccurate, but that doesn't make the film any worse. In reality, the melody was written by Rezso Seress in 1933 and the words by Laszlo Javor in 1935, but in the film the words and music are both written by Andras Aradi in 1939.

To the film: Laszlo Szabo owns a luxurious restaurant in Budapest. His parents are both Jews, but he feels no connection with the race or the religion. As far as he's concerned, he's a Hungarian. He lives with his waitress Ilona. He doesn't marry her, because he doesn't want to tie her down. He offers her an open relationship, in theory at least, because she has no interest in other men. That doesn't change until she meets the new pianist hired for the restaurant, Andras Aradi. After this Ilona has a relationship with both men.

An important character in the film is the German travelling salesman Hans Wieg. When he visits Budapest in 1939 he also falls in love with Ilona, but she rejects his advances. Two men are enough for her. He returns three years later as an SS officer. But that's getting ahead of myself. Let's get back to 1939.

Andras composes the song "Gloomy Sunday" for Ilona. At first it's instrumental only, the words are written later. The first time the song is played in the restaurant, Hans attempts to drown himself in the Danube. Laszlo pulls him out of the water, and the two become close friends. The next evening one of the restaurant's regular customers hangs himself after listening to the song.

The song is recorded, and it's distributed first in Hungary, then worldwide. There are many suicides in connection with the record, 157 deaths in New York alone.

There are big events in 1939. In March Austria, the country previously united with Hungary, becomes part of Germany. In May Hungary leaves the League of Nations, which was the former name of the United Nations. The Second World War breaks out, but Hungary remains independent. In 1941 Hungary declares war against the Soviet Union (which I prefer to call Russia), which makes the country Germany's ally. Hungary allows German troops into Hungary to aid its war against Russia. This means that Hungary has to accept Germany's anti-Jewish policies. All Jews in Budapest have to be rounded up and sent to concentration camps.

In 1942 Hans Wieg is the leading SS officer in Budapest, and he uses his influence to prevent Laszlo being captured. Hans doesn't hate Jews, but he profits from the situation. He acquires large companies for himself by telling their Jewish owners that they'll be saved if they sell the companies for a fraction of their worth. He allows rich Jews to escape to Switzerland for $1000 each. He expects Hitler to lose the war, so he wants to build up his own wealth in preparation for the following years.

Andras himself kills himself after playing the song for Hans.

Can a song drive people to suicide?

This question is discussed in the disc's extra features. The modern consensus is that the answer is No. It's true that hundreds of people killed themselves while listening to "Gloomy Sunday", but it's thought that they would have killed themselves anyway. The song was just a good melody to accompany them into death.

Is that true? I don't know. What I can say is that the BBC took the danger seriously and banned the song from 1942 to 2002.

---

Sunday is gloomy, my hours are slumberless,

Dearest the shadows I live with are numberless.

Little white flowers will never awaken you,

Not where the black coach of sorrow has taken you.

Angels have no thought of ever returning you,

Would they be angry if I thought of joining you?

Gloomy Sunday.

Gloomy is Sunday, with shadows I spend it all,

My heart and I have decided to end it all.

Soon there'll be candles and prayers that are said, I know,

Let them not weep, let them know that I'm glad to go.

Death is no dream, for in death I'm caressing you,

With the last breath of my soul I'll be blessin' you.

Gloomy Sunday.

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The Tunnel (4½ Stars)

This is a German film, made in 2001, based on a true story. The names have been changed, but the film's audio complementary reveals the names of the real characters. The story takes place in 1961-1962, and most of the characters were still alive in 2001, as revealed by the "What happens next" texts.

In 1961 Harry Melchior was the best swimmer in the DDR (East Germany). Two weeks after winning the national swimming championship he escaped to West Berlin, using a fake passport. He was determined to rescue his sister Lotte from the East, so together with his best friend Mathis, who had fled from East Berlin through the sewers, he began to build a tunnel under the Berlin Wall. The tunnel was 145 meters long, seven meters below the ground. Their plan was to rescue 32 people from the East, all of them friends and relatives of the people building the tunnel.

Initially there were problems with building the tunnel, because it had to be constructed part time. Then an American film company became aware of the project, and they paid the people building the tunnel 15,000 Marks each for the exclusive rights to film the escape. This financial backing made it possible for the builders to work full time.

It's chilling to see how deviously the East German secret police, the Stasi, operated. They tortured suspects and blackmailed citizens to spy for them. As I've often pointed out, the supposedly Communist government of East Germany continued to operate in the spirit of Hitler's Fascist government.

I almost gave the film five stars, but I deducted half a star because the film is unnecessarily long. It runs for 160 minutes, but I feel it could have been compressed to less than two hours without losing any of the drama.

This film was also released in England and America with subtitles, but it's now out of print everywhere. I'm glad I bought it in 2005 when I still had a chance.

Amen (5 Stars)

I decided spontaneously to watch this film today after reading news reports that the Vatican will open the archives of the documents of Pope Pius XII, commonly called the most evil Pope of the 20th Century. He was the Pope who knew about the mass murder of millions of Jews, but made no public statement about it. Those who are generous say that he remained neutral in wartime because he was scared of reprisals from Hitler; those who are less generous say that he hated Jews and supported Hitler's efforts to annihilate them. It's hoped that the documents will shed light on his personal views. Personally, I don't think the documents will answer any questions. I expect that the Pope's closest advisers, maybe even the Pope himself, destroyed all incriminating evidence after the War.

The film follows Kurt Gerstein, an expert in disinfection, who joined the SS in 1941. Due to his technical expertise he rapidly rose in the ranks and became the head of the Hygiene Services. His duties included the creation of mobile purification systems for drinking water to be used by German soldiers.

Gerstein was doubtlessly a German patriot, and he even supported Hitler in the early years of his career. The turning point came when his mentally ill niece was put to death. He joined in protests to stop the euthanasia of the mentally ill. The protests were successful, but they came too late. When the German government agreed not to kill mental health patients, most of them were already dead.

Then Gerstein was invited to visit concentration camps to solve their purification problems. After the use of Zyklon B in the showers, the cleaning squad had to wait for two hours before it was safe to enter. The camps wanted the waiting time to be reduced to five minutes, so that they could kill Jews faster. Gerstein gave his assistance in the optimisation of the camps, but he was horrified at what he saw. Although he was a Protestant, he sought the help of the Catholic Church to speak out against the mass murder of Jews. He thought that if the Pope, the world's biggest and most influential Christian leader, condemned Germany's actions, Germany would be forced to close the camps.

But the Pope didn't listen.

Gerstein himself visited Rome, but he was refused an audience with the Pope. He had friends in the Catholic Church, who the film combines into the one fictional Jesuit priest Ricardo Fontana. They begged the Pope to intercede, but he refused. The exact reasons might be found in the archived documents, but it's doubtful.

The German army entered Rome to gather Italian Jews for the camps. The Catholic Church likes to make a big deal of the fact it gave refuge to a few thousand Jews in Vatican City, but there were many, many more who perished.

One of the film's main characters is an unnamed SS officer who is only referred to as "the Doctor". He's obviously meant to be Dr. Josef Mengele. The film ends with him seeking refuge at the Vatican. After the war many German officers were being persecuted by the Allied Forces and threatened with trial and execution. The Catholic Church offered sanctuary to any German officers who were Catholics, including transport to South America.

This is a fascinating film, with the emotional depth that we can expect from any film made by Costa-Gavras. Kurt Gerstein is torn between his duties as a German officer and his deep Christian beliefs. His closest friends turn against him, because they don't believe what he tells them about the concentration camps. One of his Christian friends despises him for joining the SS, and he says "I have clean hands because I only organise freight trains to the East". Is that a reference to Adolf Eichmann?

I'll be watching the press for any news about Pope Pius XII. But I won't hold my breath while I'm waiting.

Werk ohne Autor (5 Stars)

This is the German nomination for the Best Foreign Language film at the 2019 Academy Awards. The literal translation of this film's title is "Work without an author", but in English the film is called "Never look away". The film is based on the life of the German artist Gerhard Richter, although the main character in the film is called Kurt Barnert.

The film begins in 1937 with five-year-old Kurt being taken to an exhibition of "Entartete Kunst" in Dresden. That's a very difficult expression to translate. The usual translation is "Degenerate Art", but that doesn't adequately express the same feelings as the German words. "Violated Art" is closer, but it's not completely wrong to say "Distilled Art". The meaning of the expression is that everything that makes art art has been stripped away, and what's left is presented as non-art. In the Third Reich the expression was used to describe modern art. The exhibition in Dresden was used to describe how bad modern art is. Good German artists would paint trees and mountains and beautiful women; degenerate artists like Piet Mondrian would paint boxes.

After the war Kurt becomes an art student. East Germany's Communist system shares its views on art with the Nazis. The recommended art style is "Socialist Realism". Modern art is spurned. As I've mentioned elsewhere, despite its claims to be a different political system, East Germany copied the style of Nazi Germany and can be considered its spiritual successor.

In 1961 Kurt fled to West Germany and studied art again in Düsseldorf. Here he was encouraged to paint modern art, or even not to paint at all. It took him a few years to develop his own original style, and eventually he became famous.

In parallel, the film follows the story of Professor Carl Seeband. Under the Nazis he was a doctor who decided which mentally ill patients should be sterilised and which should be executed. There was no third option. He was responsible for sending Kurt's Aunt Elisabeth to the gas chambers. After the war he escaped punishment and was put in charge of Dresden's largest hospital. Kurt dated his daughter and eventually married her. Despite his claims to be a good socialist, Carl still believed that those with inferior genetic qualities shouldn't be allowed to breed. He too emigrates to West Germany, albeit legally, and the contact remains.

This is a powerful film. It shows how a talented painter managed to find his way despite the prejudices all around. He created a new art form which was initially rejected even by the advocates of modern art. It's a long film, running for 182 minutes from the beginning to the credits, but it was never for one moment boring. It's difficult to imagine that there will be a better film in its category at the Academy Awards.

Suspension of Disbelief (1 Star)

Within 10 minutes of watching the film I was feeling like I should turn it off. It was so bad in an annoying way. I gritted my teeth and told myself I should give it a chance. After all, it stars the wonderful German actor Sebastian Koch in one of his few English language roles. So I sat to the end of the 112 minutes, and when it got to the end I regretted it. That's two hours of my life that I'll never get back.

The plot itself is interesting. It's the realisation that's at fault. Sebastian Koch plays Martin Jones, a successful German scriptwriter who lives in London. He also makes money teaching scriptwriting to film students.

One day he has an argument with his wife. She walks out of the door and is never seen again. At first it's thought that she's just left him, but after 15 years there's still no contact, so it's assumed she's dead. Now Martin has written the screenplay for a film called "Suspension of Disbelief", which deals indirectly with his wife's disappearance, suggesting that she was murdered by being pushed into a river. The film's two main stars are a French actress called Angelique and Martin's 25-year-old daughter Sarah.

After a party at Martin's house Angelique is found dead in a river. Obviously that makes Martin the main suspect and re-opens the case of his wife's disappearance. The detective who's sent to interview Martin is a hobby scriptwriter and gives Martin his first screenplay to read, a murder mystery called "Main Suspect". The detective seems more interested in getting Martin's opinion on his script than investigating the case. When Martin tells him after a few days that the script is awful and he should stick to police work the detective has a heart attack and dies.

In another twist, Angelique's identical twin sister Therese arrives in London for the funeral. (Didn't I just see an identical twin in "Napoli Velata"? "Suspension of Belief" was made six years earlier, so who's copying the idea of a murder victim having an identical twin?) Therese is allowed to live in Martin's house for a few days, which turns into a few weeks. First Therese seduces Martin, then she seduces Sarah, then she takes over her sister's role in the film.

There are surreal scenes within the film. When Therese reads the script she finds that it's describing her reading the script. The phone even interrupts her, which is what happens in the script. Is it the script of the film being made in the film or the real film itself? That's not clear.

The director even mentioned this to Angelique when she asked him to explain why she had to kiss Sarah after killing a man:

"What we're gonna do is we're trying to deconstruct the cliché of film noir within the sense of the post-modernistic look of Humphrey Bogart's noir films within the cliché. Black, white, red. Alright? Two women, sexual, empowered, feministic. This is the film within the film within the film of the script. Do you understand?"

No, I don't understand. I don't think anyone does. Sadly, I think this is the intention of the real film itself.

I must apologise if my description of the plot makes the film sound like a brilliant avant-garde opus similar to Charlie Kaufman's films. It isn't. It's pompous and overbearing. Long periods of absolute silence are supposed to be artistic, but all they did was make me check my loudspeakers were working. The picture occasionally fades from colour into black and white to emphasise the film noir aspects, but this is so clumsy that it's laughable. Worst of all is that the film is framed by a lesson in Martin's scriptwriting class, with students asking questions pertaining to what's happening. Every 10 to 15 minutes a word appears on the screen that is applicable to scriptwriting, together with its definition.

This is probably the worst film I've ever seen. It tries so hard to be intellectual, but the end result is annoying. I forgot to mention, the film even begins with a quote from Carl Jung to explain why we enjoy films. We need a second quote to explain why we don't enjoy "Suspension of Disbelief".

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The Danish Girl (3 Stars)

Usually when I review a film based on a true story I only write briefly about the film, concentrating on the facts behind it. I've decided not to do it in this case, because the film differs so greatly from what really happened in aspects vital to the story. If I wrote about the real Einar Wegener aka Lili Elbe it would be a totally different person to the one portrayed in the film. The film isn't to blame for the alteration of the facts. It's based on a best-selling novel by David Ebershoff, written in 2000, which fictionalises the events and their background. It's best that I avoid complications by treating the film as a work of fiction and only write about what it tells us.

Einar Wegener and his wife Gerda were both painters living in Denmark in 1920's. He was a successful landscape artist, considered by many to be Denmark's greatest living artist. She painted portraits of women and was less successful. When a model failed to turn up to be painted, Gerda asked Einar to dress up in women's clothing to take her place. Einar enjoyed the experience, and Gerda encouraged him to go out with her as a woman for a game. This game got out of control when Einar, calling himself Lili, began to flirt with a man at a dinner party.

Things became increasingly complicated. When dressed as a woman, Lili spoke of Einar in the third person, as if it were someone else. Similarly, when dressed as a man he spoke of Lili as a different person that he wanted to let out to play. This coincided with Gerda finally becoming successful, because her paintings of Lili were her best work ever.

After a few years Einar felt that it was time to abandon his male character and fully become Lili. To do this he went to Dresden for surgery to have his male organs removed and replaced by female organs. He chose the family name Elbe, the name of the river that flows through Dresden. The operation made him visually a woman, but it wasn't enough for him. He wanted to be able to have a baby, so he returned for a second operation that he didn't survive.

The acting of the two main characters is nothing short of phenomenal, worthy of Oscar nominations. It's almost that time again, isn't it? Eddie Redmayne ably manages to portray both a man and a woman, as well as the indecisiveness of someone living a double life. Alicia Vikander perfectly portrays the dilemma of a woman slowly losing the man she loves as he disappears into an abyss.

As I see it, the film was made with an agenda. It's intended to show the acceptability of people choosing their own gender, whether merely by dressing up as the opposite gender or undergoing gender alteration surgery. If I remember the correct words, Einar says of his operation, "God made me a woman. The doctor is curing me of the sickness that makes me look like a man". That's a highly political statement. It denies that a person undergoing a sex change operation is changing himself, it says that the person is being cured of something that was wrong in the first place.

Einar Wegener

Gerda Wegener

If you're wondering why I've rated this film so low, it's because it tramples on the truth in order to deliver its political message. I'll briefly describe the main deviations from the real characters.

Einar Wegener was not born a man. He was a hermaphrodite born with the traits of both genders. One of the complications in his second operation was that when the surgeon wanted to insert female reproductive organs, ovaries were found already present in his body.

Gerda Wegener was a lesbian and preferred her husband to dress as a woman.

Einar and Gerda lived in Paris much earlier than the film suggests, before the first World War. While in Paris, a city where nobody knew them, they lived as lesbian lovers.

Bridge of Spies (4 Stars)

I was poorly prepared for this film. I didn't realise it was a true story until the end of the film, when the further development of the main characters was described in the informational texts.

In 1957 a Russian spy called Rudolf Abel was arrested in Brooklyn. James Donovan, an insurance lawyer played by Tom Hanks, was requested to defend him in court. He did this to the best of his ability, convinced that every man deserves a fair trial in the American legal system, but nobody else shared his opinion. Even the judge is shown to have made his mind up about Abel's guilt before the trial begins. It's just a show trial, to pretend to the world that American justice is fair. It isn't fair. When Donovan says that the evidence against Abel should be dismissed because it was gained without the use of a search warrant the judge refuses, saying that it's a matter of national security, which is more important than the fine details of the law.

Nevertheless, a bond develops between Donovan and Abel. Donovan sees Abel as a soldier in a war, and he's fighting faithfully for his own country, Russia. That earns his respect.

In 1960 an American spy plane is shot down over Russia, and the pilot, Francis Powers, is captured. Russia suggests, indirectly, a prisoner exchange. They can't call it an exchange, because they don't do exchanges. They say they will free Powers as a sign of good will if America first frees Abel as a sign of good will. They want there to be a few months between the releases to stop it looking like an exchange.

This is where James Donovan is called in again. He's sent to East Berlin in 1961 (shortly after the construction of the Berlin Wall) to negotiate the exchange. His work is hampered by the lack of agreement between Russia and East Germany. At that time America (and most other countries) didn't recognise the existence of East Germany, which called itself the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, the German Democratic Republic. America considered East Germany to be a region of Germany that had been annexed by Russia. The East German government considered itself to be independent, Russia's partner rather than Russia's slave. This all led to a lack of cooperation between the Russian and German officials in East Berlin. When Donovan made agreements with the Russians the Germans refused to allow them, and when Donovan made agreements with the Germans the Russians refused to allow them.

The problem with East Germany between 1945 and 1990 is that it was Russia's ally, but it was never a Communist country, except in name. East Germany was the continuation of Nazi Germany in its social and political structure. East Germany had a single party system, a dictator and a secret police that suppressed all opposite to the government in words and deeds. The persecution of Jews continued in East Germany after the war, even if they were no longer murdered. Jewish cemeteries were destroyed and Jewish property was confiscated by the state. High ranking Nazi officials were allowed to carry on working in East Germany.

The film is very gritty and realistic. It's not a chest-beating patriotic film in which America is the good guys and Russia is the bad guys. Everyone is as bad as everyone else. The only good man is James Donovan, caught in the middle and standing up for what he believes is right.

Unknown (5 Stars)

*** Review deleted ***

Amen (5 Stars)

The Greek director Costa-Gavras (real name Constantinos Gavras) is hardly a prolific director. He's made less than 20 films in the last 40 years. However, what he lacks in quantity he makes up for in quality. Any film with his name on it is worth watching, whether it was filmed in Greece, America, France or Germany. His films deal with political issues, and this film, based on true events, is no exception. "Amen" deals with the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church during World War 2, when it refused to take a stand against the slaughter of Jews. More than anything it's a moral drama, showing how a man can be good when all around him are evil. This film is breathtaking in its intensity and should be watched by everyone, whether you are Catholic or not.

Incidentally, here's a film trivia for people who like weird coincidences. When the actor Ulrich Tukur was asked to play the role of SS officer Kurt Gerstein he bought a biography about him to learn about the character. In the book he read that Gerstein had lived in the same house in Tübingen where Tukur had lived as a student. Was he destined to play the role?