GOTTA SEE IT # 12 - "BLINDSPOT: HITLER'S SECRETARY"

“BLINDSPOT: HITLER’S SECRETARY”

Starring: Traudl Junge.
Directed by: Andre Heller, Othmar Schmiderer
Colour – 2002
90 min

Austria

Consensus sucks - in art, anyway. The majority opinion matters in politics, of course, but, it can suck too - like when your candidate loses. Hello, Democrats! In art, though, film art included, it is irrelevant. You like the movies you like - majority opinion be damned! (I swear, that’s the last exclamation point). I mention this because there seems to be a consensus that talking head documentaries are stale and boring. Since Michael Moore came along and exploded the documentary, there has been a definite move towards spicing things up in non-fiction land - pranks, gimmicks, flashy images and attitude have prevailed. I am very glad to report that Blindspot: Hitler’s Secretary ignores all of that and relies solely on a series of interviews with a single, solitary woman.

That woman is Traudl Junge, who at the age of 22, was hired on as Hitler’s secretary. Working for him from 1942 to 1945, the tale she has to tell is fascinating for both obvious and non-obvious reasons. The camera never leaves its’ static position, as Junge recounts, in incredible detail, her days working under De Fuhrer. Some of her memories are so trite - he named his dog “Blondie”; he hated the sight of dead flowers - as to be borderline inappropriate. After all, we’re not talking about some silly Hollywood celebrity here, but a man who was responsible for the slaughter of at least 10 million people. Yet, it’s darkly, sadly comical that this man even extended his view of Aryan supremacy to the naming of his dog and, though a butcher of epic proportions, couldn’t stand the sight of dead flowers.

More importantly, Junge’s inclusion of trite bits of information about Hitler suggests that she has never been able to fully reconcile the man she knew with the man the rest of the world knew. I would even go so far as to say that she has never lost her affection for him. Late in the film, as Junge recounts the final days of Adolf and Eva Braun, that affection surfaces as she becomes emotionally moved by her remembering. I mention this not to condemn Junge, but to underline the bizarre duality of this man - one minute being polite and jovial with his secretary and the next minute ordering the slaughter of a whole race of people. Also, and I don’t mean this in a sarcastic way, this proves, once and for all, that you can be in a person’s presence, day after day, for years and yet never really know them. People show you what they want to show you and hide everything else - including mass murderers.

There is a sort of personal sub-plot running through the film concerning Junge’s conscience. She insists that she never knew about the concentration camps. She blames her youth - she was 13 when Hitler came to power. Yet, at the very end of the film, she tells of a time shortly after Hitler’s defeat and suicide, when she passed a monument to a young girl, the same age as her, who was killed as a result of resisting the Nazis. Junge concludes that, though she blames her youth, this excuse doesn’t hold up at all. It is a powerful moment made all the more so by the fact that to that day, some 57 years later, Junge had yet to come to terms with her participation in an unspeakable horror that she was present for but never saw.

Containing more compelling moments than a dozen or so features combined, Blindspot: Hitler’s Secretary is a remarkable document of one person’s view from the eye of a terrible, brutal hurricane of horror.

GOTTA SEE IT # 11 - "ETRE ET AVOIR"

“ETRE ET AVOIR”

Starring: Georges Lopez, Alize, Axel, Guilliaume, Jessie, Johan, Johann, Jonathan, Julien, Laura, Letitia, Marie-Elizabeth, Nathalie, Olivier, Franck.
Directed by: Nicolas Philibert
Colour – 2002
99 mins
France

School. That word triggers a thousand memories - some truly wonderful, some absolutely horrible. Teacher. That may trigger even more. I can remember some genuinely awful teachers - those dark, miserable souls whose overall happiness seemed to rest on the very sunny prospect of me failing their class. Fortunately, flipping back the spiral notebook pages of my memory, I can also recall some very fine teachers - the kind who honestly gave a damn. The teacher profiled in this moving French doc is one of those ones.

In a one room school house, in a small French farming community, a soon to be retired teacher named Georges Lopez presides over children aged 4 thru 11. If there is any one quality a teacher has to have in abundance, it’s patience. Going over the same lessons, day after day, month after month, year after year, as students struggle to understand and progress, a teacher has to have the ability to wait for that moment when all of his pupils finally get it. If patience were pillows, Mr. Lopez would have several dozen warehouses stocked full of them. He, also, though, possesses a genuine love of his profession. He says as much in the only interview in the film - though by the time that scene rolls around, you’ve already watched that love in action.

Mirroring his subject’s calm, controlled manner, director Nicolas Philibert paces Etre Et Avoir in slow and steady steps. Heck, he even opens up with a couple of turtles crawling on the floor of the schoolhouse - a witty visualization of the unhurried rhythm at which country life, learning and Mr. Lopez operate. Philibert also mimics Lopez’s observational qualities, as he leaves his camera rolling and captures all manner of minor moments that charm and move - attention deficient Jojo neglecting his colouring; a more and more confused Julien getting “help” from a steadily increasing crowd of family members; an emotionally fragile Olivier opening up about his father’s illness.

Now, it’s no mean feet to make school seem like the most wonderful place in the world. Though this may not have been the intent, at times, it is undeniably the result. Who knows - there may be hours of outtakes of the kids turning Damien and driving Mr. Lopez nuts to the point at which he loses it in a profanity-laced tirade that makes Bobby Knight look like Mr. Rogers. I doubt it, but, just for this semi-cynic’s sake, let’s leave that possibility open. In the footage that we have to judge by, though, when things go wrong, Mr. Lopez, in calm and reassuring tones, uses logic, fairness, and emotional empathy as he attempts to turn even non-school activity into an important learning experience.

If you’re a teacher and feeling a little cynical about your chosen profession, then do yourself a favour and take a trip down to your local independent video store (those big stores won’t have it) and rent this movie. If you’re not a teacher, then this film might just make you wish you were.

GOTTA SEE IT # 10 - "THE BLUE ANGEL"

“THE BLUE ANGEL”

Starring: Emil Jannings, Marlene Dietrich, Kurt Gerron, Rosa Valetti, Hans Albers, Reinhold Bernt, Eduard von Winterstein, Hans Roth, Rolf Muller, Roland Varno, Carl Balhaus.
Written by: Heinrich Mann (novel), Carl Zuckmayer, Karl Vollmoller, Robert Liebmann.
Directed by: Joseph von Sternberg
B&W - 1932
101 minutes
Germany

“Beware of blonde women, they’re special, every one. At first you may be unaware, but something is definitely there. A little hanky-panky can be fun, but from their clutches you’d better run.” – sung by Marlene Dietrich as “Lola Lola” in “The Blue Angel”

Sex vs. Intellect - I know which one I’d put my money on.

This match up for the ages sends us down some cracked and crooked steps into the deep dark belly of German filmmaking circa 1932. Immanuel Rath (Emil Jannings), an esteemed professor, falls hard for a scandalous barroom entertainer named Lola Lola - played with effortless sensuality by early erotic icon Marlene Dietrich.

Compelling, focused, with an emotional intensity that is remarkably sustained for large stretches of scenes, The Blue Angel is a marvel to behold. Though a simple story of obsessive love and how it strips a once proud man of his dignity - leaving him stunned and struck silent by his inability to pull himself away from his object of desire – what amazes me most about this film is its’ sheer, cumulative power. Structured circularly, the scenes in The Blue Angel pass, one by one, each efficiently echoing and amplifying the last, until they achieve their full force in a devastating final shot which is simply too sad and haunting to be forgotten.

When Rath loses his dignity, something far more important also slips from his grasp - control. Students in Rath’s class snap to attention when he first enters the room every morning. Rath has total control over them. This is how he is able to teach them, to mould them and to keep the classroom from descending into anarchy. Without this power, he is finished as a professor. When his students spy their once intimidating prof reduced to a love struck schoolboy in Lola Lola’s presence, he is done. An authority figure is exposed as a fake and nothing will ever be the same.

Jannings and Dietrich, two legends of German film, make the most unlikely of couplings and, naturally, so too do Rath and Lola Lola – he’s large, heavy, unattractive, stiff and stuffy and she’s beautiful, sexy, playful and loose – yet their chemistry is undeniable. There’s an obvious father/daughter dimension to their pairing, yes, but you can actually picture the two as a romantic coupling. They compliment one another – he brings her class and sophistication and she offers him beauty, excitement and a much needed sabbatical from the suffocating strictness of his life.

Made some eight years after the end of German Expressionism, The Blue Angel, nonetheless, is informed by the movement’s taste for chiaroscuro lighting and grotesquerie. One need only watch Rath’s first visit to the titular club – as he sneaks through the dark, over a dimly lit cobblestone road, with a tall building jutting out and slanting over top of him – to see this debt in action. Or watch Rath’s final return appearance – a scene so bold and cruel and freakish that it has lost none of its’ sinister impact some seventy odd years later.

Bird imagery and mimicry take centre stage in pathetically and comically illustrating the complete collapse of Rath’s core being. These scenes are weird and disturbing and add a sinister quality to the descent of this once prideful man. It’s as if, in stripping him of his sense of self, he becomes some sort of beast - a sickly squawking creature who has lost his way. Early in the film, in a moment that should’ve convinced Rath to jump right back into bed, he discovers his bird dead in its’ cage. It’s not too long after that that Rath is doing his best impersonation of his beloved deceased pet in a cruel cage of his very own making.

GOTTA SEE IT # 9 - "BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA"

“BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA”

Starring: Warren Oates, Isela Vega, Robert Webber, Gig Young, Helmut Dantine, Emilio Fernandez, Kris Kristofferson, Chano Urueta, Donnie Fritts.

Written by: Frank Kowalski, Sam Peckinpah, Gordon T. Dawson.

Directed by: Sam Peckinpah

Colour – 1974

112 minutes

U.S.A.

Money is the root of all evil.

Okay, maybe things aren’t that cut and dry. After all, money can be a positive force in our lives. It’s all about balance, right? Well, this picture - Sam Peckinpah’s scuzzy, blood soaked up-chuck of a road movie - flips a filthy middle finger at that quaint notion.

A Mexican land baron, El Jefe (Emilio Fernandez), triggers a vicious and gruesome man hunt, when he offers a million dollars to the person who can bring him the head of the man who impregnated his young daughter. Yes, that would be Alfredo Garcia and, yes, he would be in deep, deep trouble.

Peckinpah favourite, Warren Oates (Ride the High Country, The Wild Bunch, Cockfighter) plays a down on his luck, small town bartender named Bennie, who is promised ten thousand bucks by a professional outfit if he’ll deliver Alfredo’s head to them within 4 days. They, in turn, will deliver it to El Jefe and collect a cool million for Bennie’s troubles.

Thematically focused like a laser, BMTHOAG is principally about two things - the corrupting nature of money and the power the past has over the present and, consequently, over any potential future. Bennie’s the victim of both, as he tries to use the search for Alfredo’s head as a means of turning his luck around and setting up a new life with Mexican girlfriend Elita (sexy and earthy Isela Vega). Oates has this regular guy-doofus appeal that makes BMTHOAG a surprisingly enjoyable ride. I say surprisingly enjoyable because this flick is bleak - no doubt about that - but Oates’ oddball charm keeps it from being eaten alive by its’ own relentless pessimism.

Peckinpah was a romantic. He threw his whole self into his films. Also, like Fellini or Woody Allen, his films are inseparable from himself. He is his films and vice versa. Consequently, his characters are larger than life, do or die, go-big-or-go-home types who live on the edge and prefer it that way. They cannot compromise. They cannot do anything half-way. They are what they are - for better or worse - just like the man who made them. Oates’ Bennie fits this mold, but he’s one of Peckinpah’s least commanding characters. He has more in common with Dustin Hoffman’s math professor from “Straw Dogs” or Jason Robard’s “Cable Hogue” from “Ballad of Cable Hogue” than he does with either William Holden’s “Pike Bishop” or Robert Ryan’s “Deke Thorton” from “The Wild Bunch.” He’s a loser (heck, he admits as much) and screws-up time and time again. He’s a horrible dresser, worse protector and a lousy judge of character. Summing up, it’s best not to pin your hopes on this guy. Yet, he’s the lead character in the film! Have I mentioned how much I like films about lost causes like Bennie?

There is plenty of doom and gloom in BMTHOAG - plenty of dirt and blood and dead bodies lying lonesome in the hot Mexican sun. There’s also romance, touches of black comedy and the grimy fingerprints of day old sleaze. Peckinpah has crafted an uncompromising work that, in the end, leaves no heroes and spares no villains.