AMEN
# stars based on 4 stars: 3 Reviewed by: Harvey Karten Kino International Directed by: Costa-Gavras Written by: Costa-Gavras, Jean-Claude Grumberg, play by Rolf Hochhuth Cast: Ulrich Tukur, Mathieu Kassovitz, Ulrich Muhe, Michel Duchaussoy, Ion Caramitru, Marcel Iures, Friedrich von Thun, Antje Schmidt, Hanns Ziuschler, Sebastian Koch, Erich Hallhuber, Burkhard Heyl, Angus MacInnes, Bernd Fischerauer Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 11/5/02
How much influence does the pope have on the lives of Catholics throughout the world? Quite a bit. When popes condemn abortion, some predominantly Catholic countries like Ireland make abortion illegal and others with large Catholic populations like the U.S. have ongoing political debates about the issue. What would have happened, therefore, if during the war Pope Pius XII made a worldwide Christmas statement from the Vatican condemning Nazi brutalities, particularly the extermination program against the Jews? We don't really know since such a pronouncement, however appropriate under the circumstances, never came. Whether or not a pontifical condemnation of the Holocaust could have succeeded in stopping or slowing down the brutality, the Church does exist as a beacon of morality and should be expected to launch an invective against the Nazi beasts, but moderation was the watchword in Rome during the early 1940's at a time that moderation was the worst imaginable policy. Or so thought Rolf Hochhuth, whose fiery play "Der Stellvertreter," translated in Europe as "The Representative" and in the U.S. as "The Deputy." Huchhuth's condemation of high church officials, particularly the pope, is severe while at the same time the source of controversy to this day given the defenses his followers have made of Pius XII's passivity.
Now first the first time, the ideas behind the play may get a wider audience than Hochhuth ever enjoyed, since the leftist ideologue, Costa-Gavras, has given cinematic life to "The Deputy." With "Amen," the director of such melodramatic thrillers as "Z" (about a right-wing driven political assassination) and "State of Siege" (about an political murder in Uruguay), has fashioned a restrained but admittedly one-sided exploration of the failure of the Holy Father to exercise his moral powers.
"Amen," written by Costa-Gavras and Jean-Claude Grumberg, puts an actual S.S. lieutenant, Kurt Gerstein (Ulrich Tukur) at the moral center. Gerstein, a chemist who had no idea his product would be exploited by its recipients, had perfected a gas, Zyklon B, which he intended for use in fumigating the facilities of the German soldiers. When he discovers instead to his horror that the gas was being used in Poland to liquidate Jews, he has severe misgivings and is determined to do what he can to enjoin the genocide. When a high-level church official dismisses his pleas, his cause is taken up by a young (fictitious) Jesuit, Riccardo (Mathieu Kassovitz), who acts to get Gerstein an audience with the pope, hoping that the pontiff will condemn the atrocities worldwide and inspire co-religionists to rebel against the Nazi regime. But when the pope ultimately refuses to do so allegedly for fear that the Nazis would then invade the Vatican and make off with its treasures and perhaps because he supports the Nazi attempts to conquer "godless" Russia, the story unfolds into a series of bitter ironies.
If "Amen" is blessed with a large audience, Costa-Gavras may succeed in making Kurt Gerstein the kind of hero that Steven Spielberg fashioned from the activities of Oskar Schindler. Though the world may have assumed that the S.S. (the equivalent, I suppose, of Saddam Hussein's revolutionary guard) was unified in its anti-Semitism, Gerstein provides a clue that some Nazi officials may have been motivated to act against Hitler not because the Germans were losing the war but because they considered the extermination program immoral, to say the least.
If on the other hand "Amen" does not garner huge box office, the fault could be with the director for maintaining the theatricality of the play while downplaying cinematic possibilities. For example, while we are witness to the trains taking Jews to the death camps of the East, a symbol used frequently to give the impression that the Holocaust was machine-like and unstoppable, we are not witness to the actual atrocities committed in the gas chambers and crematoria. In other words, "Amen" is far removed from Tim Blake Nelson's picture this year "The Grey Zone," which is a blow- by-blow look at man's inhumanity to man. The director's choice is a wise one, given the plethora of Holocaust movies that have shown the pile-up of skeletal bodies and the intense melodrama constructed by filmmakers of such works as "Schindler's List" and the otherwise comic and sterilized "Life is Beautiful."
What's left unexplored despite the omnipresence of Kurt Gerstein is the man's ambivalence. Why does he continue as a functionary in the S.S.? Does he fear retribution against his family? Does he wish to continue currying favor with his pro-Nazi father and with his evil associate the Doctor (Ulrich Muhe)?
The film gathers momentum because of its relative detachment, rather than in spite of that. The Doctor is a cynic who shows little sign that he believes the extermination program is a good thing. We get the impression that he's a senior functionary at the death camp for the prestige, that he's well aware that the war is lost and will probably get a good deal at its end rather than wind up on the gallows. The role of Gerstein is performed superbly by Ulrich Tukur who enjoys the support of fellow actors, Germans speaking English for the benefit of the audience. We can but wonder whether Tukur, having played a tortured character who unlike the pope refuses to sell out, will in real life be seduced by offers from Hollywood studios, who will perceive a genuine talent that can be persuaded to sign onto more commercial releases.
Not Rated. 130 minutes. Copyright 2002 by Harvey Karten at Harveycritic@cs.com
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