MAX
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: About one of the what has to be one of the world's touchiest subjects, writer/director Menno Meyjes gives us a portrait of how someone like Adolf Hitler might have gotten to be someone like Adolf Hitler. Meyjes walks a narrow line, trying to make Hitler human without making him sympathetic. There is little factual in this film and most is speculation, but it is more the story of Jewish art dealer Max Rothman who tries to help a young anti-social artist destined to be one of the most evil men of the 20th century. Rating: 6 (0 to 10), high +1 (-4 to +4)
Currently the "Star Wars" films are showing the fictional the origins of a man who represents pure evil in comic book terms. MAX tells its own fictional origin story, though the personification of evil is a person who was all too real. MAX is the story of the resolution of the conflict between artistic and political impulses in a young Adolf Hitler (Noah Taylor). This conflict will be resolved late in the film in ways that lead to a Hitler the world sadly has too much reason to remember.
MAX is a film mostly of speculation. Adolf Hitler's interest in art as a career was mostly prior to World War I. After the war, the period this film covers, he really was more involved in politics and less involved with art than shown. In MAX the suggestion is made that in the post-WWI period Hitler (strongly played by Noah Taylor) was still trying a career as an artist. This film is the story of his relationship with an aristocratic and affluent Jewish art dealer, Max Rothman (played by John Cusack). Max, who lost his right arm fighting for Germany in the war in the same area that Hitler did, has turned an abandoned railroad factory into a huge but dank art gallery filled with the likes of Max Ernst and George Grosz.
Max maintains a friendship with Hitler trying to help him develop his talents as a modernist artist, but still refusing to show Hitler's work until it improves and matures. He ignores Hitler's frequent insults, seeing a power and energy in Hitler that if harnessed would make the young man a great artist. And at this point Hitler prefers art to politics and would like to devote himself to art. But as an artist he is unable to impress anybody with the occasional exception his friend Max. As an inflammatory speaker and an agitator he has a natural and unique talent. It is a talent that certain members of the German army happily exploit. Hitler leads a double life making speeches, mostly anti-Jewish, and at the same time trying desperately to win the favor of a Jewish art dealer. Hitler tries to resolve the two lives deciding, "Politics is the new art." Max knows of Hitler's anti-Semitism but ignores it and feels that Hitler will outgrow it and one day recognize it, as he does, as an exercise in brash artistic tastelessness. He thinks it is a self- indulgence that Hitler will outgrow as he becomes a fine artist. Hitler, though for the most part a social outcast, sees himself as an artist and master builder who simply has not had the opportunity to show his ability.
MAX is written and directed by Menno Meyjes who worked on the scripts of such films as THE COLOR PURPLE, EMPIRE OF THE SUN, INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE, and THE SIEGE. Lajos Koltai films Hitler in the dark spaces that cast shadows on his face. In a marvelous way the shadows create the illusion of the familiar mustache that Hitler does not yet wear. Just by the lighting we are reminded of who Hitler will become. Dark in tone and look, his photography underlies and supports the film. Too frequently the focus of the film is not Hitler but the fictional Max. Max is the main character, but he is not the figure of greatest interest. Perhaps that is good as a portrait of what Munich was like between the wars, but one wants to see more of Hitler when he is offstage.
This is a unique film and it certainly has it moments of power down to the final bitter irony, one that may well be true even if it is not factual. But it frustratingly looks away from what the audience wants to see. I rate MAX a 6 on the 0 to 10 scale and a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Copyright 2002 Mark R. Leeper
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