Making the difference
A worthy examination of a Nazi who did the right thing.
John Rabe (1882-1950) was a German businessman who is best known for his efforts to stop the atrocities of the Japanese army during the Nanking Occupation (and massacre) in 1937-38 and, failing in those efforts, his work to protect and succour Chinese civilians [...]
Suffer the children
Directors before Michael Haneke have asked the same fundamental question that permeates his elegiac, trenchant study of darkness and light, Das weiße Band (2009) – namely, with specific reference to Germany, from whence did the affiliation with fascism rise, and how did a people turn a blind eye to the atrocities in their [...]
Secrets and lies
In what was, quite remarkably, German writer-director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s first feature, we are taken inside the dark heart of East Germany in the mid-1980s. Communism still rules with an iron grip, the fall of the Berlin Wall is five years away, and Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) is a high-flying member [...]