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Meg
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Aug 19, 2008 06:59PM
If you haven't seen this movie you are missing out on a lot. I highly recommend it. What would you do if you had a choice to make counterfeit money for the Nazis during the war or choose to die?
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I totally agree, Meg. It's beautiful and thought-provoking and filled with gray areas. Absolutely stunning -- and definitely deserving of the Oscar.
Saw this in the theater, it's pretty solid.
Great film. It did the audience a great justice by not showing "typical" life in the camps until the very end. If the entire film would have been filled with that kind of dread, it wouldn't have worked. The lead actor was extraordinary.
Pretty good film but just wasn't moved. I recommend these deeply moving Holocaust films: 1. Pasqualino Settebellezze (Seven Beauties) (Lina Wertmuller) -- An emotionally and psychologically destructive film, we are shown the depths that a human being will sink to in order to survive. When a human is stripped of their dignity, compassion, and guilt then instinct to survive is the driving force.
2. Il Giardino dei Finzi-Contini (Vittorio De Sica) -- The Finzi-Contini are a wealthy Jewish family in the late '30s Italy who spend their time ignorant of the world around them; living, making love, and dreaming in their own personal Eden. They feel protected by their wealth and status in the community but are in for a harsh dose of reality.
3. The Pianist (Roman Polanski) -- We are not spared the slauhgter in this film. We are shown the murder and debasement of the human spirit and are made to feel and react; this is a film that the viewer is not idle and unattached. If you don't cry you aren't human.
4. Judgment at Nuremberg (Stanley Kramer) -- The world tries to convince itself that it's civilized, that the 3rd Reich was an anomaly and it couldn't possibly happen again. The Allies pass judgment upon the Nazis and come to learn that these animals and evil men are nothing more that human beings, not far removed from themselves. Following orders was no excuse and the guilty are held accountable. Justice? Not in this world...
5. Amen (Costa-Gavres) -- A Nazi officer tries to warn the Pope and Allies of the millions of Jews and prisoners being sent to their deaths in concentration camps. Condemns the Catholic Church with its scathing indictment of politics over humanity, that the Church is more important than the people who serve it.
6. The Great Dictator (Charles Chaplin) -- Political satire of Hitler and his anti-Semitic Nazi regime, it is both funny and tragic as Chaplin mimics the fuehrer (who can forget the scene were Chaplin, as the Dictator, does a ballet by balancing the world on his fingertips) and begs for sanity in a world soon to go mad. His last impassioned speech is truly unforgettable.
7. Death's Head Revisited (an episode of the original Twilight Zone, season three, written by Rod Serling) -- Years after the end of WWII, a Nazi commander secretly travels back to Dachau to reminisce about the war and meets the caretaker who is the ghost of a Jew he murdered. The spirit does not take vengeance upon him (as you might expect) but instead tears down his psyche and the Nazi is finally confronted with the truth of his own actions...and goes mad. The episode ends with a question " Dachau, why do we keep it standing?" Here is Serling's closing statement: There is an ananswer to the doctor's question. All the Dachau's must remain standing. The Dachaus, the Belsens, the Buchenwalds, the Auschwitzes--all of them. They must remain standing because they are a monument to a moment in time when some men decided to turn the Earth into a graveyard. Into it they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge, but worst of all, their conscience. And the moment we forget this, the moment we cease to be haunted by its remembrance, then we become the gravediggers. Something to dwell on and remember, not only in the Twilight Zone but wherever men walk God's Earth."
Here's my review:
THE COUNTERFEITERS (Stefan Ruzowitzky, 2007, Austria) Definition: To make a fraudulent copy of something valuable. THE COUNTERFEITERS forges the truth by reinventing history with the typical representative characters and clearly delineated conflicts. Here, fact becomes fiction. The drama is condensed in order to meet audience expectations without too much moral ambiguity. We are not allowed to witness the true horror as human boundaries are erased, where “good versus evil” has little meaning, only the base animal instinct of survival. This film easily falls into the modern Holocaust genre and becomes a victim of its own static conventions…both Jew and Nazi; we’ve seen these archetypal characters before. The narrative structure utilizes flashback to impart the bulk of the story and bookends the film with Salomon Sorowitsch gambling in Monte Carlo after the war: his purpose to discard the Nazi blood money. This prologue and epilogue could have been deleted because it doesn’t offer any insight or advance the plot; it only alludes to an ersatz romance. Technically effective, Director Stefan Ruzowitzky begins the film with a surreal vibrancy then bleaches the color and changes to a grainy film stock to represent Sorowitsch’s grey and lifeless monotone existence. There are only two long shots that establish Sachsenhausen: Ruzowitzky films almost entirely in close quarters, which heighten this claustrophobic dementia. His use of a quick pan and zoom into close up within the same shot is used for exciting dramatic effect: this visual punch gives the film a realistic visceral impact. The acting is adequate but frustratingly one-dimensional: Sorowitsch is too cold and withdrawn while the supporting characters are rather bland caricatures representing black and white moral viewpoints. This intellectual luxury is denied the other faceless prisoners who are tortured daily, their existence measured in heartbeats. The director relies on our spontaneous empathy for the protagonists of this shattering Holocaust tale and forgets to infuse the drama with humanity. (C)
I must say I respectfully disagree with your assessment of this movie. I thought it had a twist that a lot of other holocaust movies didn't have especially the end. I liked the fact that the movie centered on a part that was different than other holocaust movies typically do. It certainly made me think, which to me is a sign of a good movie. The base animal instinct of survival was a very true part of life at that time which makes the observer constantly ask what would you do? To me this active participation is what made it an excellent movie.
Hi Meg, we have very similiar tastes and I respect your opinion too, that's why film discussions are a wonderful learning experience. I hope we each learn at least a little bit from each others perpsective. Though the film's premise is different from other Holocaust movies, I thought the structure was a bit too formulaic. For example, the scene where the Nazis finally demand the counterfeit American money and the Nazis line up the five prisoners to be shot...and Salomon rushes forward at the last second and surprises everyone with the miraculous currency. This is pure Hollywood inspired formula. The story is definately interesting but I feel it fails to enlighten and gives a pat answer to a complicated moral dilema. But it's not a bad film! My empathy marched with the unknown prisoners who carried sandbags and wore ill-fitting shoes. It was somehow worse that we are never allowed to see these poor souls.
But the ending came as a surprise didn't it? I liked the fact that there weren't any well known actors, or actors playing extreme parts. They seemed liked relative unknowns just scraping by to survive. I thought that made the movie stronger. I agree with you that the unknown prisoners demanded empathy but I think that was what added to the movie. The unknown prisoners who lead the lives of what we generally know of the camps added to the contrast of survival. It added irony to the movie. I think a lot of things in the movie were understated which made the movie more dramatic. I think if I watched the movie again I would see more of this.I love reading your reviews and opinions of the movies we both watch. I am sure we both agree to disagree at times. Although I am thinking we are not disagreeing here at all, we are just questioning the mark of the movie.
Hey Alex,I don't think The Counterfeiters was supposed to be some heart-wrenching drama. It was more a philosophical inquiry...for my eyes and ears anyway.
From your list, I LOVE in the garden of the Finzi-Continis. De Sica is one of my favorite directors from the Italian neo-realists.
I also thought The Pianist was outstanding.
Peace!
Well, it was an interesting story. It's not often one sees a Holocaust movie with so little death. But we've seen many much larger movies with far more violence and death, is another such required? So, this is a little different. It doesn't try to encapsulate the entire story of the Holocaust, or to speak for all the victims. It's a small tale of a small protected group, most of whom survived by using every skill in their inventory. Not so completely protected to be sure, but in full knowledge of what was going on beyond the wall in Sachsenhausen, and what was going on in the real death camps, like Auschwitz. So no one is acting in ignorance. No one fails to undertand how important their efforts are to the very regime that is enslaving them and killing off all their family and friends. So, they are willingly complicit with their tormentors, most anyway. Certainly they contributed to the Nazi war effort, but of course so did many thousands in slave labour camps, just at a lower level. And many did far more unspeakable things in order to survive another day in the ghettos in Poland and most especially in the camps. The film thrives on moral ambiguity from one scene and one character to the next, and between the inmates and the chief Nazi as well. And I think the ending subtracts from that. For me, it would have been better had the protagonist simply gone over the wire with the money, never to be seen again. The little morality play at the end in Monte Carlo is not only superfluous, but detrimental to the main thrust of the film.
Having said that, I thought it was a very good film in many respects amd the main character did a very fine job in his role with minimalist technique. I think the main idea was to show how much their had to suppress their thoughts and emotions to survive. Those who failed to withdraw into themselves, to wall themselves off from the realities on the world on the other side of the wall, failed to survive. So, for me, the acting of the cast worked very well.
I couldn't agree with you more. I think because of this, it made it an atypical movie and thus a great movie. I do agree that the end was definitely not in consistency with the rest of the movie, but the twist was a good one. Maybe I am more hopeful than most.
Meg, Well, of course that was my reaction based perhaps more on my own world experiences, etc. and is perhaps equally revealing of my own personal character flaws. The main character is essentially a criminal before he shows up in the camps. He spends most of the next 10 years doing whatever it takes to survive, and then having succeeded and taken off with a very substantial amount of cash, he blows it all. So, now how will he survive? I suppose it's not like he lacks skills. Well, perhaps, it happened since it was an extremely traumatic experience after all. for me, it's like saying all this was somehow morally redeeming, that it happened for some larger reason. But we all react to things differently, and I can't say your interpretation has less value than mine. by the way, I agree very much that the movie worked far better by not having any major or well known actors in it. If it had, I'm sure it would have been written differently and would have been more melodramatic to showcase whatever particular actor was involved.
I am looking forward to your perspective of the film Rob. The Holocaust has always been a major point of interest for me as well.
Rob, I know you're a NetFlix customer like I am. They have some wonderful WW2 and Holocaust films and documentaries.
Rob, you must see Alain Resnais' documentary NIGHT AND FOG about the Holocaust. I didn't mention it in my first post because I was only concentrating (no pun, really) on fictional examinations of the Holocaust: in many ways fiction can give us more insight than "stock footage". But NIGHT AND FOG transcends the documentary structure (I believe) and touches the sublime.
Hey Rob,I'll give you a cue for a friend on Netflix!
Night and Fog is a nice short on the subject. Criterion released it a few years ago. I'm not a huge fan of it, it's a little pretentious for my tastes, but he is a fine filmmaker. Hiroshima, Mon Amour, is a masterpiece.
For my money, if you're going all the way with this, Shoah is one of my favorite films about the Holocaust. Not many people are up for watching it though...it's about 11 hours long for one thing, but still highly recommended.
If you're in search of "the other side" of Holocaust films, this is a good one, because it focuses more on the survivors, and the spirit of survival, which is a great perspective to bring to the table.
Add me as a friend on netflix, my netflix name is megvt.
I am glad you said that Rob because I thought I was losing it. It used to be very easy. My email is megvt@aol.com. It will be interesting to see your queue, mine is like the never ending story! Plus I have a different queue lineup for the instant watch which I love through the roku.
The Sorrow and the Pity is a classic. Highly recommended. It's massive, and gives a lot of information.I saw Shoah at the Lumiere in San Francisco in the mid-1980's when it was first released. Like Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz (which is what, 15 hours?) you watched it over two days. I saw that it was on DVD, so I rented it with a friend a year ago or more, and we didn't watch it all, just sections. It's worth checking out.
I thought Downfall was AMAZING. Probably the best film I saw in what, 2006? There were so many things to like about it, first and foremost was Bruno Ganz' performance. And yes, the closing scenes with Goebbels took your breath away.
Yeah, seeing Berlin Alexanderplatz on the big screen was a real event. eight hours one day and seven hours the next....can you tell I like movies??? It really was the way to see it though, although I found out later that Fassbinder made that for German television, as did Kieslowski with the Decalogue (10 approximately 50 minuite episodes, each modelled after one of the ten commandments). But luckily I saw both of them on the big screen...a real treat. We are very lucky here in the bay area to have not one but several revival houses, and my favorite (and it's just a few minutes away by bicycle) is the Pacific Film Archive. I am a member, and it's only $5 to get in (even if I bring a friend). They're having an amazing retrospective right now of all these films made in Mexico in the 40's and 50's...more great stuff. I think Spielberg did include section of Shoah in the DVD of Schindler's List...but I can't remember. It's been a long time since I saw it.
Well, with all the Holocaust film recommendations, let me suggest two extremely different and equally unique films that are well worth watching, The Night Porter with Charlotte Rampling and Dirk Bogarde and Everything is Illuminated with Elijah Wood. Both focus on individuals rather than the attempt any overall statements. The first is about a young woman who survived the camps, Charlotte Rampling, and her chief SS torturer/lover, Dirk Bogarde who meet again accidently after the war. The story revolves around their convoluted, perverse and tormented relationship. A sick doomed love affair of the damned.
The second is a more mystical story of discovery and the interconnection of humanity with Wood venturing into the unknown of post Soviet Union Ukraine in an attempt to find the rural village his grandfather came from at the beginning of the war. He hires an interpretor and a driver, the grandfather of the interpretor as they motor around rural Ukraine in search of a place that disappeared entirely during the war, who's name has been all but completely forgotten by people who would largely prefer it to remain that way. In the end, it is a voyage of mutual discovery and it is unclear who is the voyager and who is the guide. A very poignant tale filled with great beauty and horror, often presented together, but a tale told with considerable humor as well.
I agree with you on Everything is Illuminated. I haven't seen the other one, another movie to add to my queue!
Well, you'll have to be in the right mood for that one. It was quite controversial at the time. But I thought I'd throw it out there since it fit the subject.
Nice recs George! I've seen both of those and the more finely tuned personal narrative is the attraction. And I'm not usually an Elijah Wood fan (OK, don't throw stuff at me!), but he made it work in Everything is Illuminated.The Night Porter is beyond good. I have several friends who are devotees of that film. That's an emotional rollercoaster if there ever was. Now that I think of it, you can imagine Fassbinder being influenced (or inspired) by that one.
Thanks, glad you liked them. The Holocaust has always been of particular interest to me, like many others, along with WWII and history in general. For those of you who've never seen it, Ship of Fools from the 60's is also a very interesting piece of things leading up to the Holocaust. Plus Voyage of the Damned from the 70's with Orson Wells and others which covers the voyage of the St. Louis just before the opening of the war. If you're not familiar with it, that's a great story in reality which richly deserves to be remembered, as the St. Louis held hundreds of Jews fleeing Germany, etc. Many of them had visas for the US, but there was a quota on them in the years leading up to WWII, so the visas weren't yet valid at that point. They obtained fake Argentine or Brazilian visas, if I recall and used them to leave Europe, but in the end couldn't use them to enter South America and eventually got held up in Havana harbor for a long time, while various countries argued over what to do with them. Some folks committed suicide in Havana while waiting. The US refused to take them. France and the Netherlands took some, and Great Britain took the children. The US didn't take any, as I recall. The rest were sent back. In reality, except for the kids, very few survived the war.
TV's The Winds of War did a pretty good job for commercial television as well, if you can get past Robert Mitchum's wooden Indian performance.
since folks here are mentioning Netflix, I'm there as GWL, and my email address is available to friends here.
Phillip, By the way, I rarely actually throw things at folks, regardless of what you may have heard. I think Elijah Wood has had some interesting performances, Sin City in particular, and he made an acceptible Frodo for me, but I wouldn't him on any top 10 lists.
Hey George, I wasn't directing that comment at you; it seems like a few women on this list have a warm spot in their heart for him....
Interesting that we usually see "the holocaust" as an episode in European History fixed during WW2.
There have been a slough of holocausts, and a few that have taken place in this country. My ancestors were mostly driven into the dirt by one of the great holocausts of history - the intentional extinction of the indigenous people of the land where we now reside. Unfortunately, there really hasn't been an effort to bring that holocaust to the screen. HBO did a "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" recently, but it was so watered down and revisionist that I couldn't watch it ( I actually did make it through to the end, but...jeeze, what a great load of lies - anyone who has read the book would recognize immediately how the filmmakers gloss over a swarm of tragedies). I realize it is very difficult to bring a book to the screen, but come on, the film makes it look like the Cheyenne and the Soiux murdered their own, and it passes over the actual massacre at Wounded Knee as if it were a mere afterthought.
Russia certainly had its share of mass-extermination. If Euro-centered history is your thing, you really owe it to your self to check out "Come and See", one of the best WW2 films I've ever seen. Told from the perspective of Russian living on the Russian front, this film shows the Nazi invasion through the eyes of two children, just entering adolescence and "dealing with things way beyond their maturity level" (there, a quote from Juno makes it into my post....and yes, the overabundance of irony is fully intended).
Phillip, you are reading my mind! I was planning on watching Klimov's masterpiece this evening because I own the 2 DVD Kino release...it's been a few years and I need a new appreciation to write my review. I think it's one of the greatest war films ever made. Period.And a film that I find much more interesting and honest than THE COUNTERFEITERS.
Phillip, Ok, wasn't sure if you thought I was about to open fire on you or not. As for the fact that there are many different episodes of holocaust type behavior by mankind, I'd hardly disagree. I was only discussing this particular one since that's what we were discussing. And, it is one that is of particular interst to me for a variety of reasons. Fortunately, few folks are quite as organized or determined as the Nazis proved to be, and few have the resources the Nazis were willing to devote to it, often against their own interest in prosecuting the war.
But, I'm all too familiar with quite a few. Among other things, I spent time in the Former Yugoslavia during one of their outbreaks, so I'm not speaking entirely from a bookish perspective. I also spent years working with refugees and asylees, overseas and in the US. so, there are few horror stories of the second half of the 20th century that I have no familiarity with, I'm sorry to say. American and Euorpean history is of particular interest to me, but I actually majored in Middle Eastern studies and have spent a fair amount of time in the Middle East, North Africa and Asia.
Yes, American history does have its dark points, along with the rest of humanity, and its history of its interaction with the various Native Americans are among its darkest, along with slavery, although neither are limited to American history, the Spanish conquests of the Mexico and points south aren't all that much to brag about either. Take a look sometime at the Spanish American war and the US in the Philippines in particular, especially the Philippine Insurection sometime, after the conclusion of the war with Spain.
I did see Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. It could have been better, although at least someone tackled it. It may be quite some time before anyone else does anything nearly as good, much less better, unfortunately. Not terribly commercial, of course, and tends to upset folks more than entertain.
Sure, it's just interesting that when someone says "holocuast" people almost immediately think of Nazi Germany. It's tired at this point. But I respect your interest in the subject, by all means - whatever floats your boat!I'm just saying it's really interesting to see how Americans (forgive me, mostly white Americans) seem to conveniently forget that this country has staged two holocausts...out of sight, out of mind, and the holocaust in Europe is more recent....at least that's what most people think. But the legacy of the American holocaust on Native Americans is still largely in place. The government overlooks crimes against reservations like the Napa Valley wineries stealing water from surrounding Indian lands, the military dumps toxic waste on those lands, etc. etc. etc.
OK, I've climbed down from my soapbox. Forgive my rant.
Moving on: I'm glad to hear a few of you know of Come and See - that's a really extraordinary film. You're right Rob, that kid's performance is unforgetable.
Well, there you go....we once represented 100% of the population on these lands and now we represent 2% of the population in the United States of North America. If you're not hearing it from us, it's because we've largely been eliminated from the game.But still, there are a few films here and there that come out of Native America. Unfortunately, they tend to be films that are not terribly well-made. Why? I assume there are many reasons. Here are a few I can conceive of:
What resources do folks have who live on the Rez? Are there film schools on the Hopi Lands? Have the people on the Zuni lands have access to Eisenstien's texts on film narrative and film theory? Would a Lakota Souix have the inclination to watch a flim like Stagecoach?
How do you argue with parents on the Navajo lands that their children (67% of which are addicted to meth), should put aside their struggle for economic survival and become *artists*. They were once a culture of artists. Their arts didn't include cinema, it didn't include literature. Did it boast a great tradition of storytellers? Of course it did. But our languages were outlawed in the 1800's, and at one time they could be shot for speaking their language. Are we reluctant to share our stories with white folks? I'm sure you can imagine why...
The real clincher is this: Native Americans, in general, are suspicious and reluctant to engage in the capitalist system. This is the major schism that exists between life on and off the Rez. The Hopis, for example believe that the epoch we are living in is the last epoch and that we will be destroyed by the creator if we don't stop making decisions for our own good and start to make decisions that will benefit all people and the earth where we all reside. You can see how capitalism, with market-driven motivations don't really fit into that construct. And let's face it, the film industry in America is hard to dislocate from capitalism.
It might be more than a bit difficult to finance a major motion picture, as it is for most film projects, but in reality, I think there would be a substantial potential audience if one were made, both in and outside of the US. And I imagine the Sundance folks would certainly support any individual who came along with an idea for a smaller individual production. But quite aside from film, I think there would certainly be a market for books, and once published, it would likely be easier to market film projects. So, I think that the larger American audience, white or otherwise, would be more than receptive to listening to someone who was willing to overcome their reluctance to share their stories.
There are a lot of fine Native Writers, and it's possible someone might come along and make a film of one of these novels.
Rob, and not to mention that those who survived, and their decendents, have not been so reluctant to tell their stories. I think part of interest in the Holocaust is that this is hardly ancient history, and Germany itself was one of the most modern countries in Europe with great pride in its long cultural heritage and its Jewish population among the most assimilated, many of whom fought in the German army in WW1. And yet, when push came to shove, the Germans acted with a savagery never equalled in a modern, educated "civilized" society. But they didn't act out in some momentary outburst of passion or madness. Many of their worst crimes were meticulously planned out over significant periods of time. And, of the war is one of the defining moments in modern history, for the world at large and America in particular. It has an immediacy for many of us. My father and others in my extended family fought in the war. I have personally met and talked to survivors of the camps.
By the way, Phillip,if there are some particular Native Writers you'd care to recommend, I'd be willing to give them a try, even if you truely believe I'm "Eurocentric." This is, after all, Goodreads.
Goodness, fellahs, I did not mean to imply that either of you (or anyone else on this list) is clueless, mis-informed, out of touch, racist, etc. etc. etc. How can any of us know of all the things that are going on in the world? This is something I keep an eye on, it effects the lives of people I feel a kinship with...we all have our "causes" we subscribe to, n'cest pas?And I'm not pointing the finger at anyone on a cultural level. I try to live with genuine respect for all people and all cultures...until their behavior tells me I should think otherwise. I enjoy reading your thoughts, and discussing things with you. That's all this is about.
George, I could recommend a few things that might interest you.
As far as getting inside the "native voice", a good place to start might be the Pantheon collection of "Native American Myths and Legends". If you start there, you have a good background of folklore to draw on when your read the contemporary writers like Sherman Alexie (The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is one of his celebrated books) or Louise Erdich (Conspiracy of Doves is nice).
The Pantheon book divides all the myths into sections (creation myths - human creation - tales of the sun, moon, stars - monsters and monster slayers - war tales - tales of love and lust - Coyote (and other) trickster tales - stories of animals and other people - ghosts and the spirit world - visions of the end).
Cheers!
No, I hadn't gone that far either, but then, "Eurocentric" was intended as a complement? Who knew?I'll take a look at some of your suggestions though. thanks
in the (so-callled) *politically correct* sf bay area, "eurocentric" is often seen as something negative.but to make myself clear, the so-called politically correct sf bay area often offends me with all its hypocritical stances. for example: when we invaded iraq (after 9/11), lots of students at uc berkeley were protesting AGAINST the anti-war stance...how things have changed! and just the other day i was riding my bike down the street and i saw a young man get hit by a car on his bicycle...there was a line of cars that were held up while we got him up off the pavement on to the curb, and many of the cars that were held up were honking at us (like, "hurry up! i'm late getting to get to peet's for my soy latte!)
but i digress...the truth is, this place is home, and i can't imagine living anywhere else. and we were talking about books and films. i'll try to keep my eye on the prize.
I could say more. I always can. But, I'm willing to let it slide, Phillip.
Should I tell you guys what it is like to live in rural VT? I could go on forever..........
You're welcome to go on, if you wish. I can't remember the last time you said anything I didn't find interesting to read. It would make for an interesting topic. Who comes from the most backward area of the country?
Well Rob we have cow tipping and cow pie tournaments here. Cow pies are made of cow manure. I sh*t you not!
I don't think I can compete with cornholing. Rob, you win.
Believe it or not, tourism is our #1 industry in the state. Go figure. Tar and Feather made me laugh out loud.
I just joined this group because of the word "cornholing" and thought you all were watching something else altogether, and I kept thinking if there was a scene in The Counterfeiters I had missed. But just the kind of twists and turns that email communication takes because it is truncated communication without people in the room so all nuance or most nuance is lost. Sort of like talking to the dead in those seances where the medium has perfected the monotone. And I do think those cornholing folks in Ohio are completely aware of the double entendre in their competition title. But all that aside, I scrolled through the postings. I saw the counterfeiters and thought too that the ending and the last minute rescue were modern storytelling desirous of a neat package at the end. A lot of contemporary folks don't do well with ambiguity it seems. Professionally I'm a social worker and ambiguity is the daily gig. I saw The Sorrow and the Pity in the early 70's at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. I had joined a film society and we pooled money to get films that weren't being shown in other places. I belong to Netflix and most of the movies I get are in languages other than English. I think many European films about WW II are more likely to have ambiguity than American Films, at least that has been my experience. The Sorrow and the Pity was remarkable in the interviews of people who survived, both citizens and soldiers. One would never have known that they were in the same war, much less the same city. It was very much like Rashomon, whose version does one ultimately believe? I remember the opening line of Nancy Friday's My Mother, My Self, "I love my mother; I hate my mother; Rashomon."My father fought in the Pacific theatre and came back disabled (very little care for shell shock or what is now PTSD, other than some electro-shock treatments at a military hospital and discharge) Eventually after multiple attempts he killed himself in 1963, when I was almost 10. So the comments about the effects of war and human brutality survive for generations. The challenge is to confront and make whatever uneasy peace is to be made and to continue on with some determination to mitigate the long reach of destructive human behavior. There was also a film of the Irish Troubles in Northern Ireland. I think it was "Brand New Key" wherein people from both sides were interviewed and it was easy to see how some individuals very quickly moved to violence as an acceptable form of behavior. I've watched lots of movies related to the events of WWII. The Counterfeiters was neither the best nor the worst. I think in the telling and retelling of these stories it important to remember that they represent points of view and one may only be looking at trees without ever seeing the whole forest. I prefer the ambiguity rather than the neat packages - not because it is better but because through the lens of my personal experience it is what I recognize and understand.
welcome to the group, jackson, and thanks for your thoughtful post. it's nice to read some people expanding on their thoughts.i agree with you about ambiguity. i'm so often disappointed when filmmakers resist it. we've discussed this in the "good horror films" group, in reference to mysteries...when filmmakers solve the mystery for the audience, what's left? and yet the trend is to explain everything, or, as you say, offer some tightly wrapped up ending where *good* conquers *evil*....which is totally uninteresting, imo.
Yes, Jackson, a very nice post. We got off topic primarily because the people who had contributed had already said pretty much whatever it was they wanted to say about the film. Things got a bit warm and everyone decided to tone down a notch. Actually, I don't know that much about the actual group the movie portrays. Does anyone know if they didn't survive the war? I thought that part probably more or less reflected actual events, but maybe not. The very end scene is almost certainly fiction, in my mind, but even that I couldn't say with certainty.
In any case, these postings are like most conversations among people who know each other and drift here and there. But they're open to all and if someone has something on the original topic to share, you can be sure we'll all read it and pick up the new thread.
Welcome Jackson, and great post. I hope you join our movie of the month group. We are all seeing Diving Bell and the Butterfly and will probably start talking about it next week. Warning, we are a feisty group!
I was just googling this movie. There is a book, Krueger's Men, on the subject. According to a blurb on the book, money created by the group was used after the war to help smuggle survivors into Palestine and buy weapons for the Palmach, the pre-independence army. Anyway, I've ordered it.
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