AMEN ----
Chemist Kurt Gerstein (Ulrich Tukur, "Solaris") offered his services to his country by developing Zyklon-B pellets as a method to purify drinking water for soldiers in the field. As a commissioned SS Lieutenant, Gerstein was ordered to step up his production and invited to a death camp to witness the new use found for his creation. Horrified by what he sees there, Gerstein attempted to find means to stops the Nazi atrocities, pursuing groups right up to the Vatican, but in the end all he was able to accomplish was written testimony that was to indict not only the orchestrators of the final solution, but himself, in director Costa-Gavras's "Amen."
The director of such hard-hitting political dramas as "Z" and "State of Siege" has had a spotty filmography since 1982's "Missing." Costa-Gavras returns to full potency with this masterful film, an examination of culpability as well as the biography of a little known figure whose story deserves to be told.
Costa-Gavras begins his film with the 1936 warning shot fired by Stefan Lux, a Jew, into his own head at the League of Nations. Then we see a sweet faced young girl smiling at a doctor, who returns her warm greeting, as she and other handicapped children are herded away by white-uniformed nurses to be disposed of with the exhaust fumes of the trucks which transported them. This girl is Gerstein's niece and it is at her funeral that he first hears rumors of the murder of 'unproductive citizens.' Gerstein doesn't really begin to accept the truth until the pervasiveness of Nazi doctrine visits his own home in the form of his daughter's homework - how many working class homes, which cost 15,000 Deutschmarks, can be built for the cost of one insane asylum at 6 million?
As Gerstein tries to escalate the horrific situation, to Swedish diplomats, his own Protestant Bishop (who informs him that he is tired of the whining of the Jews), his path crosses that of Riccardo Fontana (Mathiew Kassovitz, "La Haine"), a young, idealistic priest whose family has close ties to Pope Pius XII. The Vatican however, rejects the idea of listening to an SS officer and, afraid of Nazi occupation, delivers platitudes to Fontana, who makes his stand by adorning his cassock with the yellow Jewish star. Fontana, a fictional composite character, is sacrificed by his own, while Gerstein is indicted with his (it has never been determined if Gerstein hung himself at Nuremberg or was murdered by fellow officers). The film ends with an irony even more bitter to stomach.
Costa-Gavras uses restraint while building the desperation of his two protagonists. The killing of Jews is never seen on screen, yet everything we need to know is projected upon Gerstein's face as he looks through the peephole of a gas chamber. The Lieutenant's attempts to undermine the use of Zyklon-B backfire, making a ghastly situation worse. Trains are ever present, chugging inexorably across the landscape, livings being lost by tens of thousands a day as Gerstein and Fontana struggle fruitlessly. The director's artful touch is again evident when Gerstein's family celebration of Christmas hauntingly evokes the ritual of the gas chambers.
Tukur gives a profoundly moving performance as the unwitting enabler of mass murder. He invests his character with devout Christianity that is palpable in scenes with his family. His anguish and near disbelief in the death camp scene give it as much power as if we had witnessed what his eyes had. Kassovitz gives a quieter performance, yet his sorrowful rejection of the Church's decision to act for its own preservation in lieu of its teachings has a powerful strength. Ulriche Muhe is knife blade cold in his evil rationalizations as "the doctor," leader of the Nazi officers tasked with implementing the final solution. Marcel Iures creates a cocoon of whispered dogma to protect Pope Pius from condemnation.
Cinematographer Patrick Blossier creates rich, beautifully composed images for Costa-Gavras and cowriter Jean-Claude Grumberg's vision. The Vatican is seen from an overhead shot of a spiraling staircase amidst opulent architecture, like a Nautilus shell protecting it from outside forces. Later in the film, Gerstein travels with "The Doctor" past mass graves being burned to destroy evidence from approaching enemies - it's a hellish image.
There have been many, many films about the Holocaust and some might even suggest the subject has been overworked. Quite surprising, then, to find that two of the topics best and most unusual films, Polanski's unsentimental tale of a Warsaw ghetto survivor and now Costa-Gavras's tale of two insiders to the crime's complicity, should arrive a scant few months apart.
A-
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