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SOPHIE SCHOLL: THE FINAL DAYS A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2006 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ***
SOPHIE SCHOLL: THE FINAL DAYS (SOPHIE SCHOLL - DIE LETZTEN TAGE), an Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film at this year's Academy Awards, is yet another movie about the Nazis. But this one is quite different in both tone and story than the ones we've seen before.
Constructed in three distinct acts, it follows Sophie Scholl, a college student, as she and her brother Hans (Fabian Hinrichs) daringly but calmly set out anti-Hitler leaflets. This brief beginning is followed by a long middle section when she is interrogated at length about her crime against the state. The movie ends dramatically in a quick show trial in which she, her brother and one other young adult are all found guilty. They are executed a few hours later.
There is little action in this thinking person's drama, which feels like a play. Over half of the movie is devoted to the middle section, which is staged mainly as opposing talking heads. Sophie Magdalena Scholl (Julia Jentsch), the twenty-one year old girl who dared to fight the Third Reich with some pamphlets, has a reasoned discussion with her interrogator (Gerald Alexander Held), a careful bureaucrat who follows his orders and at first appears to almost be willing to accept Sophie's initial denials and her elaborate alibis.
As Sophie, Jentsch is a model of resolve and reserve. Her quiet confidence almost convinces us that she thinks she will be released. But, deep down, we know that she is smarter than that and knows that her fate is certain death.
The movie, which is based on a true story, happens not during the final days of World War II, as many pictures lately have been, but in February of 1943 in the middle of the war. The final days are those of Sophie, her brothers and a few other members of the conspiracy to tell the truth about how bad the war is actually going, regardless of the official pronouncements from Hitler's prolific propaganda machine.
In the United States, the right to a speedy trial is enshrined in our constitution, but the right speed is relative. Within days of being arrested, Sophie faces a kangaroo court presided over by a shrill, screaming judge (André Hennicke) and is shortly thereafter killed for her beliefs.
Speed is an issue too in the movie itself. Setting a slow and methodical pace, director and writer Marc Rothemund keeps the movie always on message. It is about ideas. Sophie, once she has been unmasked as the perpetrator of the acts of sedition against the regime, is quite willing to argue her position assertively but calmly, even though she knows that death will be coming sooner rather than later.
Rarely has bravery been presented with such reserved dignity.
SOPHIE SCHOLL: THE FINAL DAYS runs 1:57. The film is in German with English subtitles. It is not rated but would be PG-13 for off screen violence and would be acceptable for kids around 12 and up.
The film is playing in nationwide release now in the United States. In the Silicon Valley, it is showing at the Camera Cinemas.
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