Product Description

Studio: Kino International Release Date: 12/06/2005 Run time: 93 minutes

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #29241 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-12-06
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Letterboxed, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: French, German
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 93 minutes

From The New Yorker
The remarkable German actor Ulrich Matthes, with his spooked, black-eyed stare, burns with rage and mortification in the role of Henri Kremer, an anti-Nazi Catholic priest from Luxembourg who was interned at Dachau in 1942. Kremer (based on the real-life Father Jean Bernard) is granted a leave to go home, where he falls into the hands of another theological personality-the S.S. officer Gebhardt (August Diehl), who has transferred his love of God to love of the Reich. The S.S. wants to use Kremer to convince Luxembourg Catholics that they should support the German Occupation. This film, written by Eberhard Görner and Andreas Pflüger and directed by Volker Schlöndorff, is grim but powerful, and it opens up a new movie subject for American audiences-the sufferings of the anti-Nazi Catholic clergy at the lower levels. In the mid-winter grayness of northern Europe-not a trace of red or blue anywhere-the light seems to have gone out, but at least one soul remains incandescent. In German and French. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Excellent film! I wish Americans made movies like this.
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.

Beg for your life!

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.

a searing portrayal
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.