Pros: Filmed in Germany, main actors' strong performances, high level of German spoken
Cons: Perhaps confusing at parts about characters' roles and relations; ditzy behavior of his fiancee, Maria
The Bottom Line: Important Lutheran theologian's last years of life portrayed well by German actors; great settings and costumes of the period; Ulrich Tukur as Bonhoeffer very convincing
frwhiskey's Full Review: Bonhoeffer - Agent of Grace
CAVEAT: Do not rent the wrong Bonhoeffer film; one is a documentary with a lot of talking heads; this is the German-Canadian drama of his life. (The former has been reviewed here at Epinions).
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the outspoken Lutheran minister who lost his life under Nazi rule by joining the anti-Hitler Resistance, is portrayed in this excellent German-Canadian film by actor Ulrich Tukur. Some of the main actors are Canadian, some German, and the film can be heard in German or English. I could not always tell if the original was in English, since I heard it in German, but in either case, it is very well done, with subtitles.
Ulrich Tukur plays Bonhoeffer with aplumb - a lover of music, a German from a well-off family, well-fed and balding early, pudgy and jolly already when he studied in New York at a Theological Seminary in 1931-32. Bonhoeffer's time there studying, primarily with Southern and East Coast black men, opened his eyes to the cruelty of national policies which used race to make second-class citizens. He enjoyed immensely the energy and lifeforce of his fellow theologians - all men - and was a popular piano-player amongst them. All this is portrayed in the opening scenes of the movies, as Bonhoeffer pounds out jazz tunes on a piano with a black fellow student. We see him presented with the first bound copy of his dissertation, the now-famous "Cost of Discipleship", and hear the U.S. Divinity professors beg him to stay, not to take the risk of returning to his homeland, GErmany.
He must go - he cannot as a Christian live separately from his own Christian community when they are suffering. Almost immediately, the film shows us his troubles beginning, as he is barred from speaking in the church, teaching theology, and that he must check in with the Gestapo each week. His famous mistake is calling "Der Fuhrer" a "Verfuhrer" = misleader. He in real life did so on the radio, a speech stopped mid-air; in the film, we see him lecturing from the pulpit his fellow ministers, and they all give the Nazi salute and pledge allegiance to the Fuhrer when the Gestapo shows up. They want to "stay in business", so to speak, and they do; the Lutheran Church continued with swastikas in the churches.
Bonhoeffer is shown relegated to a large and empty, beautiful country estate, where the father of the family had been friends with his own father. That man and the son are fighting on the Russian Front (Ostfront); they don't return. Bonhoeffer avoids the draft, teaching local young men theology in this country house illegally, until the house is raided. The widow and her horse-riding teenage daughter are his main company; inevitably the bereaved daughter, Maria, falls in love with the man almost 20 years her elder, longing for her father. The movie shows sensitively his hesitation, and her ardor, but does not show her keen intelligence, as she was in real life; she appears ditzy. They are engaged to be married.
It is at this house he becomes involved with the Resistance, pretending to work for the Abwehr, but in fact involved with assassination attempts. Some mention is given in the film of his dread of this evil - that one should be involved in killing to avoid other evil.
All in all, the film flows smoothly on with the very short outline of Bonhoeffer's life under the Nazis - through his arrest and then years in prison, trying to help other prisoners condemned to death. He writes hundreds of letters, reads incessantly, and prays. In all his years there he was never drafted, and he had never worked any real jobs except teaching well into his 30's. The resentment of less-priviledged Germans, especially Nazi men assigned to his interrogations, is shown.
I had just read the fictionalized account of his life by Giardino, a book I highly recommend, especially to understand what this film is portraying. This is not a Hollywood film - and certainly an execution by hanging is No Happy End. However, the Lutheran Church Council and Babelsberg Studios near Berlin clearly put a lot of effort and thought into this film. I am sorry to say that it might confuse an uninformed viewer. When he is made to strip for his final death scene, a month before Germany's defeat, it is more shocking than many of the WWII films with their heaps of dead bodies.
Bonhoeffer knew he would die, and he had spoken and written about what would happen to Christianity in the future - especially in light of the atrocities of the war on Christian Europe. He felt it would come back stronger, more real, more alive, more as the original message of Christ had been.
Perhaps the sad ending is therefore simply this: that a trip to Europe shows that all Christian churches are dying out, attendance is drastically down, and the authority of the Church leaders is long forgotten as binding and fearsome. Materialism and atheism seems to reign, mixed with attempts by some to find solace in Eastern religions. Could he have predicted this turn? He did not, so I suspect he would have been very disappointed.
On the plight of the Jews and other persecuted groups under Nazi rule, Bonhoeffer was outspoken, but his main concern comes through in this film: that true Christians must never join the side of evil, or abstain from action, but fight to strengthen the Christian community and all its values, to have courage as true Christians for what is right.
The original settings of Germany serve to make the film very authentic. The busride to Flossenberg looked wonderful, for example, complete with accordion music, a real "Kraft durch Freude" trip. Imagine, a Nazi vacation bus is his last transport to the hangman's stand.
His resistance to Nazi Germany made him a modern hero. His execution in 1945 made him a Christian martyr. A true story of love, courage, and sacrifice...More at Christianbook.com
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