Customer Reviews

Amen.

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Based on a true story, *Amen* is an important, and heretofore unexamined, angle in cinema's ongoing grappling with the Holocaust: the complicity of the Catholic Church with the Third Reich's "Final Solution". Important BECAUSE the subject hasn't been examined in film. Precise, too; the movie is concerned with the murder of the Jews in particular. Early in *Amen*, we see the German Catholic Church put a stop to the euthanizing of what the Nazi Party calls "unproductive citizens", e.g., people with Down's Syndrome and, indeed, any who suffer from mental illness. The local archbishop threatens the Nazi bureaucrats with exposure to world opinion, and thunders indignant, logical arguments from the pulpit ("'Unproductive!' And what of injured soldiers returning from the front? Are they 'unproductive', too?" etc.). But the thing is, these mentally ill were baptized as Christians. The JEWS, on the other hand. . . . Director Costa-Gavras gives them an unlikely champion: an SS officer and chemist Kurt Gerstein (Ulrich Tukur) whose creation of a cleansing agent, designed to filter contaminated drinking water for the troops at the front, becomes a primary tool in the mass-murder campaign by the German government. The chemist, a devout Protestant, is horrified when he discovers to what uses his invention is being put. He is eventually brought to a concentration camp, and is more or less forced to view a gassing through a peep-hole on a gas-chamber door. Thankfully, WE'RE spared the sight. Indeed, we "see" almost no atrocities: Costa-Gavras assumes we're intelligent and moral enough to already know that genocide is evil. (Obviously a faulty assumption, considering that this movie received almost zero attention from audiences and critics. We clearly need piles of bodies displayed with Barber's *Adagio for Strings* swelling in the background, and a Schindler-like hero played by a robust and good-looking Irishman.) Instead, he shows us the hideous paperwork, the incessant criss-crossing of the cattle-cars (empty one way, full the other way) . . . the whole damnable mechanical PROCESS of the Holocaust. Gerstein decides to be the "eyes and ears" of this process, and even tries to slow it down in his fumbling way by hysterically claiming that THIS batch of chemicals is leaking from their canisters and must be destroyed, THAT batch won't be ready for months, and so on. Meanwhile, having learned that the Church managed to stop the murdering of the mentally ill, Gerstein appeals to the local diocese. Upon informing the local big-wig prelate that the Nazis are systematically wiping out the Jews, the prelate muses suspiciously, "Are you even Catholic?" But he DOES get the attention of a fictional young Jesuit, Father Riccardo (played with agonizing understatement by Mathieu Kassovitz). Riccardo becomes determined that Pope Pius XII should learn of the atrocities . . . and is fiercely checked by the Church bureaucracy and finally by the Pope Himself. *Amen* savagely attacks the Church in general and the Pope in particular: it's rather telling that Costa-Gavras could find no single figure to base Riccardo upon, but had to create an amalgam from various (and doubtless feeble) voices in the Church hierarchy at that time. Some may complain that Riccardo is merely a symbol of Good, and that another character in the film, known only with chilling anonymity as "The Doctor", is just Evil personified. But I think enough ambiguity is provided by Gerstein himself: we like him, we identify with him, we sympathize with his disgust, we encourage his attempts to alert the world, but we also feel uneasy that he remains in his position as SS Lieutenant. What IS the truth about Gerstein? We'll never truly know what was in his heart; we only know what he documented about the process of the gassings, after he was incarcerated after the war. Was he trying to condemn his murderous colleagues, or merely hoping to absolve his own continued participation? Or both? Perhaps Riccardo and the Doctor, both fictional, represent his own divided soul.

As far as films dealing with the Holocaust are concerned, I do not believe that AMEN is in the same category as LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL or SCHINDLER'S LIST. I say this not so much because of the film's quality, but due to the fact it is really a morality tale about what happens when people who are basically good fail to see obvious evil, do little to nothing about it, and in the end may even be aiding the evil that so opposes good. The Holocaust is merely the backdrop, and the failure of organized religion to oppose the evil of Holocaust is history's best example to demonstrate what happens when people do not oppose evil.

At the beginning of the film, people of the Christian faith seem to be doing the right thing. People with mental and physical disabilities are being sent to the death camps, and churches, particularly the Roman Catholic Church boldly speak against the atrocity. Yet when the same thing happens to the Jews, the vigilant churches remain indifferent at best, and in more cases than not, silent. The more the churches realize the atrocities, the more deafening the silence becomes.

Amen breaks new ground as far as the discussion is concerned. Much has been made about the silence of the Vatican in general, and more specifically Pope Pius XII's failure to speak. The film could have used the easy answer, namely fear that the Vatican would be destroyed, and would therefore destroy the Church as well. While this is mentioned in the film, it really does not seem to be the major reason for the silence. The choice for the Church was either to side with the Allies, which included Russia, a Communist nation. The Communists were viewed as more evil since Communists opposed religion. The Axis powers were just as evil as Stalin, but at least they allowed the practice of the faith as long as the Church was not critical of the Nazi Regime. This seems to be the more accurate reason for the silence.

Many people who will see this film will see the Catholic Church in a less than positive light. I'm not certain this is accurate. The character of Fr. Riccardo Fontana is one of the two heroes of the film; he is Catholic, and actually stands for what is best in the Church. Keep in mind, the greatest Christians, Catholic and non-Catholic, are more often than not the heroes who stand alone, and the heroism of one who stands alone is probably a more powerful example of faith than any religious officials. We see in the character of Fontana one who makes a morally good choice and acts on it as opposed to the hierarchy, who made a bad moral choice of choosing what they believed was the lesser of two evils. Fontana is actually a Christ figure and his actions teach us how we should be acting. Also, people viewing the film should keep in mind that while the Catholic Church is the Church that is viewed as wrong, none off the other Christian denominations did all that much to stand up to the evil either. If Dante is correct about the hottest spot in hell being reserved for those who remain neutral, and silence is considered neutrality, many are in deep trouble.

Regardless of the merits of the film itself and the importance of the subject matter potential buyers of this DVD need to be alerted to the fact that, contrary to Amazon's blurb above, it is *not* presented in the original language. It is dubbed into English with a variety of often incongruous accents. There are no other language tracks and no subtitles.

Perhaps for many viewers this is not an imporatnt consideration, but for those who wish to watch the film in its original form, it is available from Amazon.de under its original title "Der Stellvertreter (The Deputy)". The German DVD includes an English soundtrack for those who prefer it, but also a German soundtrack with German subtitles.

This beautifully filmed moralist story of an SS Officer and a Catholic priest is based on the play THE DEPUTY. It starts out slowly, so conditioned have we become to Holocaust recreations, but the human conflicts eventually set this work apart and keep the viewers' interest in this woefully underreported aspect of WWII history. Fine performances, direction and production design highlight AMEN. The audio soundtrack and score, however, are not up to par with the rest of the film... the recurring "train" theme is irritating and amateurish; the rampant voice-over dubbing is also distracting and often difficult to understand.

As far as the bonus materials found on the DVD, there isn't much there...but the "Making Of" documentary has several interesting moments.

Finally, a movie that dares to expose the ties between the Vatican and the Nazi's. While the movie does not expose some of the darker ties--it still goes into areas where others seem to fear to tread. Basically, the movie involves SS Lt Gerstein (erroneously identified as a devout Catholic in another review) and Father Riccardo as they join forces to expose the Nazi evils and attempt to get the Pope to make a stand against the genocide of the Jews. Each man suffers for the stand they choose, though the Fathers course is rather mind boggling-not for it's sentiment but for it's purpose.
Devout Catholics may not enjoy this movie--as humans we tend to favor our beliefs over the truth--just as the coldness of the American representative is not what we Americans want to believe-that after the war we'll resolve the holocaust problem.
In fairness, the German Protestants are not shown in any better light than the Vatican.
All in all an excellent movie--and if my review seems anti-Catholic it is not meant to. In the aftermath of World War 2 there is plenty of shame to spread around-even 60 years later-but this movie is to be lauded for exposing corruption in high places.
For those interested in reality,this is an excellent movie

Overall, this is a must-have flick for WWII history buffs. It tells the story of Kurt Gerstein reasonably well and the fellow playing his part does a great job. The characters are good, the storyline is good, the historical events are a little off here and there, but overall, the movie stays on course and is worth buying.

My peeves with this movie may seem trivial, but I am a history buff and if you're going to do a movie like this, get the details right because those details kept distracting me. There were many errors in the movie regarding uniforms, rank insignia, flags, and a number of other things. The sinister looking black SS uniforms are used throughout the movie by Concentration Camp officers and SD personel, when in reality, those uniforms were gone by 1940. SD/SS officers also did not wear "SS" collar patches, nor did concentration camp personel. SD men wore blank black collar patches, camp guards and officers wore the Totenkopf skulls or blank black collar patches as well. Also, Gerstein's rank insignia changes inexplicably several times in the movie, which would seem to be a continuity problem. In addition to that, for some reason, the SS offices throughout the movie are festooned and bedecked with Hitler Youth flags, which made no sense to me at all, and early in the movie, SA and SS troops are marching carrying Hitler Youth banners - just seems like poor research on the technical end.

Lastly, the gassing which Gerstein witnessed is not portrayed accurately and I have no idea why, as this is the most important part of the movie. His "confession" is easily found and he describes the scene, and the scene in the movie doesn't match at all. Why? I have no idea.

Overall, despite all this, I like the movie a lot and highly recommend it. It does point out the Catholic church's refusal to deal with the persecusion of the Jews, and finally, it gives the outside world a look at Kurt Gerstein, who's been largely forgotten by history. Not all SS men were Godless monsters, and finally there's a movie which dares to touch on that subject.

"Amen" certainly ranks with the triad of WWII epics in recent years,"Schindler's List," "Saving Private Ryan," and "Life Is Beautiful." It is not that the film has less bang than its distinguished companions, it still has lasting reverberation. Its sweep is wider than the others, yet the brushstroke of a master storyteller stays meticulously detailed. Its heroes come out of the background quietly, yet with considerable fervor; one from the opulent, spiritual citadel, the other right from the jackals of hideousness. With building suspense the ultimate horror is that the film cannot answer: why did the Vatican aid the Nazi criminals and not the Jews? The telling of this drama has no false note,balancing respect for the Holy See and a paucity of humanity(skepticism)in the SS ranks. For once, there were good Germans, but bad earthly representatives of Christ. Where "Life Is Beautiful" lifts into transcendent philosophy, "Amen" hurls the wine of hypocrisy into the Papal leadership with sobering justification.

The Holocaust may be one of the more frequent topics in literature and film due to the incrediblity of the Final Solution to free the world of Jews, mentally retarded people, gypsies, homosexuals, and anyone else who fell out of favor with Hitler's grotesque vision of the German World. Because the subject matter is so heinous in nature, so loaded in history, and so prone to polarize audiences, what we have seen before this film AMEN is the horror of the fate of the Jews in graphic detail (The Pianist, Schindler's List, The Grey Zone, Bent, Paragraph 175, to name but a few). What Costa-Gavras has done is show us all of the same information, but from the stance of an SS officer who found the Final Solution appalling and fought to have it stopped. When his own efforts to quell the production of the killer gas crystals do not work, he seeks help from the Vatican. But as history has shown us Pope Pius XII failed the world, fearing more for the threat on the Vatican. The cold reception by the American envoys, concerned about battles to be won, support of Stalin and other allies, etc, even suggesting that the US did not want to accept large numbers of Jews as refugees as they would create an anti-Semitic problem for the US! No one escapes Costa-Gavras scathing eye with the exception of a priest within the Vatican who as a last resort places a yellow star of David on his cassock and is gassed with his fellow men, the Jews. The SS officer formally charges the Nazi regime in the language of the Italians, the French, the German people, and the Americans and for this act of bravery his is incarcerated.

How much is fact and how much is story telling really makes little difference in this brilliant film. AMEN makes the world take responsibility for the Holocaust and only when we can accept the entire gamut of this horrid mark on history can we be ready to take action to protect against its recurrence.

Many complaints have been made against the "dubbing" of the dialogue. In the DVD version the characters all speak in English and only infrequently is their another language spoken. The film is a must see for everyone and it is a first class film by any standards.

This movie explores the theme of collective guilt in the Holocaust by focusing on two individuals who stand out of their collectivity, SS officer Kurt Gerstein (Ulrich Tukur) and Catholic priest Riccardo Fontana (Mathieu Kassovitz).

A chemist by profession, Gerstein supplies zyklon B gas for the gas chambers of the death camps, but tries to alert the allies of the horror in which he is a willing participant. Hard to believe, but allegedly based on fact. A priest by vocation, Fontana tries to use his family contacts to alert the Pope.

Neither the SS officer nor the Catholic priest succeed. The Allies ignore the nazi. The Pope ignores the priest. The cowardly officer kills himself. The brave priest martyrs himself by boarding an Aushwitz-bound train.

Based on the movie's reconstruction, SS officer Gerstein was a coward and guilty through and through of high-level complicity in a Genocide. He would no doubt have received a heavy sentence after the war, and deservedly so.

This SS officer deserves no sympathy. The authors have therefore thrown in a few Faustian baits for those who need the idea of the good nazi.

The success of Schindler's Ark/List demonstrates the existence of a need for a belief in the good nazi. Here we have a would-be good nazi. He would like to be good, but he is so cowardly that he fails in his attempt to do good through the courage of others. In this sense, SS Gerstein is more interesting, dramatically speaking, than Schindler. He is a total loser and, in this, immensely dramatic. By Hollywood standard, not quite the ticket.

Catholic priest Fontana was a good guy who martyred himself in total despair. He is a modern version of Jesus, who died to expiate humanity's guilt. Fontana is a composite of several real-life catholic martyrs. The list of Catholic victims under the nazis is a long one, especially among the Poles. Not quite as long as the list of Jewish victims though. The complicit silence of the Catholic Church is well documented, but unfortunately not well publicized and occasionally denied.

If I dared to be controversial, I might write that Amen does to the Catholic community what Shindler's List did to the nazi community.

The greatest merit of a movie like Amen is to publicize Pope Pius 12's guilty silence while not, perhaps, alienating the entire Catholic community.

I also wish to add that Mathieu Kassovitz does an outstanding job as the Catholic priest. Another reader suggested otherwise. I have seen young Catholic priests in the flesh, and I believe Mathieu Kassovitz is perfect, a wonderful actor.

Great actors. True story. Great movie.

This is the story of German SS Officer Kurt Gerstine and his efforts to inform the world of the mass extermination of the Jews of Europe. The film has some historical inaccuracies as far as the events that really took place,(Zyklon B was only used at Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Majdanek) but these shortcomings are easily forgiven just to have this story finally be told. Gerstines' actual written report about the gassing of a convoy of Jews in the Belzec extermination camp, using carbon monoxide chambers, remains one of the most horrifying documents ever to appear in print. In fact, one of the most disturbing aspects of this movie is the realization that there were thousands of people who devoted much of their time and effort to create a method of killing thousands of people at a time in mere hours, and then worked to streamline that process of mass murder to an industrial level. Through trial and error, they would, at Auschwitz-Birkenau, actually reach the point of being able to kill and destroy the remains of over 6000 people in just a few hours. Since the film at least tries to tell Gerstines' story, and makes it clear that at least one Nazi officer was truly haunted by the events taking place is a single fact, that alone, makes it worth the purchase. To learn that someone from the inside tried to muster the courage to inform the world, shows us that not all Nazi's were cold blooded killers. All evil needs to take root and grow is for good men to do nothing. It is those good men in this story, many of whom were in positions of real power, who, after being informed through first hand accounts of the horrific events taking place, then said and did nothing, thus allowing the mass murders to continue. To be a knowledgeable, but silent bystander of such horrible events has, through hindsight, cast a hugh blanket of guilt over those who found themselves in this very position, and it's changed the way they are now viewed in history. However, it is this kind of silence, and your reaction to it, that actually touches at the very heart of the story. It makes you ask yourself the question, "What would I do in such a situation"? Would I do the right thing? It also reminds us that there were indeed people at the time, who, often acting alone, stepped up and answered this moral imparative through heroic actions, rather than stopping at mere words. After seeing this film, you'll never look at a train made up of boxcars in the same way again. They send chills down your back every time one passes in the movie, and they pass with alarming frequency as the film progresses.

All in all, it's an excellent movie about a little known chapter in the history of the Holocaust. This may well be the only time Gerstines' story will ever be told in film.