In the Presence of Mine Enemies (1997) (TV)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Joan Micklin Silver

Writer:

Rod Serling (writer)

Release Date:

20 April 1997 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | War

Plot:

A Rabbi in the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland in 1942 fights to maintain his stance of peace and acceptance...

Plot Keywords:

Rabbi | Ghetto | Nazi | Warsaw Poland | WWII

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Armin Mueller-Stahl	...	Rabbi Adam Heller
Charles Dance	...	Captain Richter
Elina Löwensohn	...	Rachel Heller
Chad Lowe	...	Sergeant Lott
Don McKellar	...	Paul Heller
Peter Friedman	...	Kohn
Tony Nardi	...	Emmanuel
John Dunn-Hill	...	Josef Chinik
Diana Skaya	...	Child Singer
Ely Bonder	...	Singer's Father
Jason Shayne Schwartz	...	Israel
Alon Nashman	...	Baruch
Susan Almgren	...	Mrs. Carwine (as Susie Almgren)
Saba Cottle	...	Miriam
Howard Rosenstein	...	Bookseller

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for thematic elements and some scenes of violence.

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Finland:K-13 | USA:PG-13 | Germany:12

Company:

Foxboro Company Productions

Trivia:

A remake of a play first seen on "Playhouse 90" in 1960, as the final installment of the 4-year anthology series.

Movie Connections:

Remake of "Playhouse 90: In the Presence of Mine Enemies (#4.17)" (1960)

Highly Offensive

Sure, this is what we need, a story about a nice Nazi. This movie is revolting on every level. This film pretends to ask questions about morality, etc., but what it gives us is an absolutely unbelievable situation where you see, in a horrifying scene, a Jew choosing Nazi life over Jewish life -- and this is supposed to be deep. If you want to address these questions, and you can, you do not create absolutely unbelievable characters in an absolutely offensive and unbelievable film set during the Holocaust! Oh, it also has the obligatory sexual violence that movies of this ilk always have. Gotta decry your sexual violence and have it, too, don't you know. This kind of film attempts to mitigate the horror that was the Holocaust. People who don't know a lot about the Holocause might see it and say, "Well, it wasn't so bad, there were good Nazis who would help." The important thing about that time in history is that, no, there weren't. If you were in the Warsaw ghetto, you sure weren't going to find a friend among the Nazis. If you want to know about the ghetto, do some real research. Start with Emmanual Ringelblum's diaries. Stay far, far away from this dreck.