DER HAUPTMANN. A movie by Robert Schwentke. This story from the Nazi era is increasingly relevant in our time.

 

A poignant drama, film, based on a true story. A corporal hunted by the Nazis escapes into the woods and finds a captain's uniform in a car. He uses it to get through the last days of the war but is soon forced to take his role seriously. The entire Nazi ideology and way of life overwhelms him monstrously, and he ends up in anarchy, absurd order, powerful and impossible hierarchy, which he exploits unscrupulously.
He himself becomes the monster of the system as Captain Herold, punishing and calling out orders for trivial offences. The scale of values swings completely when the inhuman clean-up of the death camps begins on his absurd orders. If you don't ward off death, overcome it, it will overcome you. That is the motto.

Chaos reigns supreme with unrest, reprisals and executions. Uniforms and orders are carried out mindlessly and inhumanely by right-thinking soldiers. It is a slaughter, an exploitation of defenceless fellow human beings, who become objects, pure sadism. Self-interest incites brutality.

The film, in its almost dark form, with many pale extras, shooting and senseless entertainment, is an enormous indictment of humanity, the system, the loss of all values, the destruction of fellow human beings for the sake of power and absurd preconceived values. A bunch of outdone, snubbed characters no longer react, no longer think, no longer feel.  The phenomenon of mindless followers in a perverse system. When do you become part of it?

A masterpiece of direction, sober, lonely, expansive, cold images, rhythmic, overwhelming commands, rapid Nazi indoctrination dialogues, light and dark contrasting images or vague. Fearful white faces in ragged clothing give the whole a penetrating impact. The psychological aspect is refined and sharply portrayed. The scenes of extermination are also given theatrical form. The sounds are often so piercingly dramatic, unbearable, and underline the violent nature. The shooting is crackling, hammering, the sound of a saw goes through bone and marrow. Only the harmonica and its sad sound still refers to a human being.

Good use of sound to heighten the drama. 

©️ Gabriëlla Cleuren