The Book Thief: Words are life!

Most often we are told not to read the book after seeing the film, but this is one film -- The Book Thief that one can safely do that! Both are outstandingly good! 

The Book Thief based on the novel of the same name by Markus Zusak, tells the story of Liesel (Sophie Nélisse), a down-to-earth young girl, sent to live with a foster family in World War II Germany. It was at the grave of her brother,  that she picks up her first book, unwittingly left behind by the grave digger and earns her the unsaid sobriquet of 'the book thief'. She learns to read with encouragement from her new foster father, Hans (Geoffrey Rush) and Max, a Jewish refugee who they are hiding in the cellar under the house. For Liesel and Max, the power of words and imagination become the only escape from the tumultuous events happening around them. This film is a life-affirming story of survival and of the resilience of the human spirit.

Director: Brian Percival

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Her tough manner makes her an object of ridicule in school, but Rudy Steiner (Nico Liersch), her classmate, becomes her good friend. However, when Liesel is asked by her stern teacher to write her name on the blackboard on her first day of school, it is obvious that she doesn't know how to read or write.

Along with a very imaginative 'dictionary' painted on the walls of the cellar, Hans decides to teach Liesel to read by using the book she'd taken from the graveside. Eager to learn Liesel is inspired to read more books, which are impossible to find during war. Living in Nazi Germany is hard and the scene where a massive bonfire of any book which is not German was burnt in the neighbourhood square can give a tug at the heart of any rabid book lover.  Liesel waits till the crowds leave to salvage a book out of the burning pile. She also takes the initiative to read aloud, to keep calm during an air raid where the whole town sits in a dark air raid shelter.

Director Brian Percival adroitly tells Liesel's story and has the audience empathising with her life, with its undeniable pathos. Screenwriter Michael Petroni and Oscar-nominated composer John Williams has helped to do this film justice by bringing it from page to screen and giving it just the right tone. Narrator Roger Allam who took the unseen role of death has given the film a three dimensional angle which is eerily just right. Geoffrey Rush is a very lovable Hans and Sophie Nelisse is a delicately perfect Liesel. Surely Markus Zusak is pleased with his book coming to life like this on celluloid. A dream any author would wish for.

 

- Marianne Furtado de Nazareth

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas: Cruelty and irony of war!

The boy in the striped pyjamas (2008) is a compelling and painful tale of the horrors of world war II. The unique feature of this film is that it tells the brutality of the war without actually showing it in as many images. The whole film is narrated through the eyes of an 8-year old Bruno (Asa Butterfield), son of a German Nazi soldier. Even before Bruno understands what the war is all about and why Jews are not ‘People’ as his father tries to tell him, he is consumed, ironically, by its cruelty.

Director: Mark Hermon

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The film is based on a famous novel of the same name written by the Irish novelist John Boyne. The film is directed by Mark Herman.

The film raises many questions about war. In fact, the most important aspect that the film tries to send across is that war originates and is fought first in the mind. What we see outside is just the expression of the brutalities caused by the mind for no gain. Even as six million Jews were killed in the war (the film has a reminiscence of it), the Nazis tried to convince people that the Jews had to be killed as they were subhuman and a threat to the greater nationhood of Germany. Bruno, the protagonist, however, finds it extremely difficult to fathom this ‘reality’ and hence becomes an ironic victim of sorts of the same war.

The film has been narrated with a touch masterly craftsmanship with brilliant performances by the actors, especially Asa Butterfield as Bruno and Jack Scanlon who acts as the little Jew, Shmuel. The friendship that these two build up in their brief period of meeting, makes one sit back and reflect whether breaking barriers after all is such a big difficulty at all! 

- Melwyn Pinto SJ

Sophie Scholl: Paying price for fighting 'war'

Here is yet another poignant tale of the brutality of World War II. The film narrates in an unsophisticated manner about people from Hitler’s so called community itself who saw the futility of the war and protested the illusion of Hitler. They were the real prophets who were punished when they tried to tell the truth of the impending destruction of Hitler’s malicious and ambitious designs. It is a German film based on a real life incident and is directed by Marc Rothemund.

Director: Marc Rothemund

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Sophie Scholl The Final Days is the story of three students of White Rose who are convicted for distributing pamphlets that speak the real truth. They are convicted unjustly without even being subjected to the existing law and thus are done away with. However, they die not before enkindling a doubt in the minds of the executers.

This film, no doubt, is one of the best narratives of the consequences of the war. And what makes it even more powerful is the absorbing performance by Magdelana Scholl (Julia Jentsch). The music too adds to the sordid tale of the victims.

What grips the viewers perhaps is the approach of the parents of Sophie who say, “You both have done the right thing and we are proud of you.” It is indeed admirable to see that even within Germany there were scores of people who did not approve of Hitler’s type of adventure at the cost of millions of innocent people. Perhaps, it is because of such people that the world, despite all its cruelty and uncertainty, is still a good enough place to live in.  

- Melwyn Pinto SJ

The Lives of Others: Homage to voices of defiance

Imagine living in a world where your every move is monitored, your every word is relentlessly recorded and every aspect of your life is cautiously captured. This unsettling reality of a totalitarian state is portrayed brilliantly in the film ‘The Lives of Others’.

This Oscar Award winning German film by director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, is set in East Germany in 1984 during the Cold War period. In the movie, the Stasi or the Secret police, spy on every intricate detail of the lives of East Germany’s citizens, to prevent any undercurrents of dissent against the ruling government. 

Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

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In the film, Capt. Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Muehe), a Stasi agent is assigned to spy on Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), a playwright. Dreyman is a staunch Communist and vocal supporter of the government. However, he is put under the scanner by a high ranking government official who has an ulterior motive to win over Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck), the writer’s girlfriend.

The cold, grey and dark overtones of the film resonate the dreary reality of the time. This is offset by the warm humanity of the two characters who constitute the film. The movie belongs to Wiesler and Dreyman, who transform from being blind followers of a repressive regime to fearless exponents of their own moral and personal volition.

The movie has subtle but thrilling plot points which elicit a constant ebb and flow of drama and tension. It is rooted in the harsh reality of East Germany and it is this historicity that gives the movie a greater significance. The film pays homage to the infinite individual acts of defiance for the benefit of a nation that go unacknowledged. 

- Parinitha Shinde