Customer Reviews

The Ninth Day

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This is a story partly about how the Catholic Church has been maligned and mistreated vis-à-vis its so-called collusion with Nazi Germany. When viewed in light of the political "numbers game", actually they (including Pius the Pope) may have been weighing the greater good vs the greater bad in decisions/non-decisions they made. Who are we (USA) over 2000 miles away to really understand a Vatican and Europe surrounded and intimidated by Nazi soldiers every day?

Specifically, this is a movie about the real imprisonment of scores of Catholic priests in the infamous Dachau Concentration Camp. It centers on political intrigue. But, more so though, it is about faith and courage in the face of certain death.

A very powerful movie. I am amazed that it was actually made by Germans, indicating a sincere sorrow for their country's past sins and a willingness now to confront these head on.

It's one of the very best movies of the Nazi era genre I have ever seen. It's a fast moving thriller of a film. It is in German, with very good English subtitles. Bravo Zulu to all actors. Excellence.

A hidden gem of a film! Thank you German friends! I wish we in America made such films with such depth.

Volker Schlondorff (The tin drum and the young Torless) proves once more why he is a famed and hyper talented filmmaker, and in the meantime one of the last surviving directors of the generation of the post war, whose troubled spirit and the whole necessity to express themselves has remained present despite sixty years have elapsed since those awful years of Nazi opprobrium.

From the autobiographical novel of a priest, Volker built a superb portrait, a struggling film, a striking drama where the pain, the suffering and the desperation will become the departure point and the delicate decision.

Kremer will just dispose of nine days to make his choice. Devastating and hard to forget drama, with absorbing and arresting images. You will notice the other side of the horror in Dachau.

Mesmerizing and supreme picture. Don't miss it.

of life in Dachau and occupied Luxembourg. There are no absolute, clear-cut answers for Father Kremer (brilliantly acted by Ulrich Matthes). The film is an exceptional examination of the consciences and actions of two men in particular, Kremer and Gephardt (very well-played by August Diehl). A stark and sometimes brutal piece, I cannot imagine that a person could be unchanged after seeing it. Americans could learn much from this film -- it takes enormous courage to look at ourselves with such brutal honesty. The German filmmaker, Schlöndorff, clearly knows what that means....and isn't afraid of it, perhaps because that's the
only way we learn anything genuine about ourselves.

This is an awsome true story about a Catholic priest and his fellow clergy that suffered persecution in the nazi consentration camps during WWII. It depicts the battle of wills between the persecuter and the persecuted. The acting is superb and its a good production. I recommend this dvd to all. It gives a lesson of heroism in the midst of despair, very dramatic and educational. Its hard to find good films of this kind. It is unique and worth the price.

The film begins in the Dachau concentration camp, one of the most brutal. We stay there long enough to meet Father Henri Kremer and his fellow clergy prisoners and to experience the day to day brutality and persecution they endure. One day, Henri is asked to follow the guard. Fearing the worst, a fellow pastor was just hung from a cross, he heads toward the area where the crosses are set up. Instead, he is redirected to the Commandant's office where, to his utter amazement, he is given his release. He boards the train to his home in Luxembourg. Trudging his way home in the snow from the station, he is picked up by the head of the Gestapo, Herr Gebhardt and told to report to his office promptly in the morning where he will discover, it's not a release he was given but a nine day pass. So begins Day one of nine in which he is to persuade the Bishop of Luxembourg to cooperate with the Nazis or he and his fellow clergy will be transferred to a death camp in the east. Will Father Kremer compromise his faith to save his and the others' lives? Every day he must report his progress to Gebhardt, personally, who uses every psychological trick he knows to persuade Henri to cooperate. Gebhardt is really Evil incarnate. It is a showdown between religion that would use power to dominate and control versus faith that seeks to serve and to love. It is the ultimate showdown of good and evil-the one with the weapons and the power and the one with love and faith. This is a powerful story that never lets up. It is intense to the end. What would you do in the same situation? Do you believe anything that you would be willing to die for? WWW.LUSREVIEWS.BLOGSPOT.COM

The Ninth Day is one of Schlondorff's strongest works. The story concerns Ulrich Matthes, playing a Catholic priest, imprisoned in Dachau for working with the resistance and writing a persuasive tract opposing the Nazi racial laws.

A lapsed Catholic and Gestapo agent offers Matthes his freedom if he will persuade his Bishop to embrace the Nazi cause. Weighed in the balance is not only his own life but the lives of thousands of Catholics.

Matthes struggles with an ethical, moral, and religious dilemma.

I like Schlondorff's films a lot but I don't think any film before this one maintains its point of view and tone as consistently as Ninth Day.

Although its subject matter is difficult to watch, the film is beautifully shot and every performance, even the small roles in Dachau are perfect.

In fact, this is a polished gem that should be watched and studied on several levels.

How would you have fared at Dachau? One little known fact about the death camp was that there were numerous priests who were condemned to the camp, and this film is the true story of one of them.

The cruelty of the Nazi guards is horrifying. They starved, beat, and worked the priests to death. In one scene the guards build a cross and then, after crowning a priest with thorns, they crucify him.

The actor who plays Father Kremer is pitch perfect. His face seems ravaged by pain and starvation. Then, incredibly, he is given a nine day leave of absence from the camp. And he will have to chose between his faith and freedom.

An incredible movie. Intelligent, absorbing, and shocking.

There are very few movies based on a book that faithfully relate the story and remain engaging. Either the film plods along as a page by page recounting of the book or it takes the story in an entirely different direction. This film, based upon Priestblock 25487 (a phenomenal read!) manages to strike this careful balance. While viewing the events of the book through the narrow prism of nine days in the life of a priest imprisoned in Dachau it fleshes out the plot, and includes some of the most jarring and graphic scenes of the book.

The film is also about faithfulness on another level, whether in the midst of the hell was the experience of those in concentration camps, one can maintain a firm grasp on one's faith.

The acting was superb, as was the cinematography. As many have already mentioned, this film is a true gem and deserves more recognition (as does the book upon which it is based.).

I have seen this movie twice and both times scenes in the movie haunted me for days. A powerful movie with very little dialogue but with powerful scenes. The water in the pipe story reminded me of something I read by Primo Levi. Ulrich Matthes's portrayal of Henri Kremer has to be seen. His facial expressions and physicality brilliantly match the struggles of his character. A movie you won't soon forget.

Director Volker Schlöndorff has accomplished with "The Ninth Day" what so many filmmakers--American and foreign--fail to do: to depict a believable, human, and realistic clash between the psychic motivations that engender good and evil.

Based (loosely) on Father Jean Bernard's memoir "Priestblock 25487: A Memoir of Dachuau". Father Bernard was arrested in 1941 for speaking out against the Nuremburg racial "laws" and sabotaging Nazi relations in his native Luxembourg. Though it is difficult to capture the power of the book, Schlondorff has done that and much more: he gives a baby face to the evil surrounding the priest in his memoir, a German actor who is perfect. August Diehl is Untersturmführer Gebhardt, a Gestapo agent who
looks like he could barely be past nineteen and and who was once a seminarian.

He tries to persuade Father Kremer (Bernard's pseudonym in the film) to get a letter from his Archbishop supporting the union of the Church in Luxembourg and the Third Reich: a Nazi Vatican dialogue in the only German parish left that refuses to welcome them. He has nine days to accomplish this. If he doesn't, he will be sent back.

The conversations between Kremer and Gerbhardt are what make the movie. Gerbhardt is a young and super twisted Nazi who considers himself to be carrying out Christ's--or Judas'--mission on earth with his role in the Party. His demonic theology is as follows: without Judas, without the backstabber of humanity, where would Christ be? Therefore, extreme evil has just as much of a place in the world as goodness. More, in fact. The theological "debates" are life and death for Father Kremer and he prevails in the end by touching the only bit of conscience left in Gerbhardt's evil, ruined soul.

Many have mistakenly viewed Pope Pius XII as being silent during the Nazi's reign of terror. This film should clear some of that up and show why (and he wasn't, actually) his silence lasted for so long during certain periods of time. He gave Jews Baptismal Certificates so that if the Gestapo showed up looking for them they could directly refer to his authority. He saved lives. He gave Christmas radio broadcasts denouncing the Nazi treatment of the Jews. Kremer, in desperation, asks his Archbishop what the Holy Father is doing, why he must suffer so, and the Archbishop gives and good and factual explanation.

This film is pretty brutal and always realistic. The triumph of Father Jean Bernard over maddening odds must be seen to be believed.