Monday, October 03, 2016

Labyrinth of Lies

Another quiet night at home made it a middle aged mumster night in.  Chores were done, a nice dinner made - candles lit and time to sit down and relax and be mellow.  I had heard from someone I worked with that this was an interesting movie, so thought I would give it a chance.

Based on a true story this is about a young German public prosecutor who takes an interest in the case bought against a local school teacher who was a SS officer at Auschwitz.  However he finds that there is limited interest in prosecuting him because of many of the men involved were also in the Nazi party.

I was surprised by one of the scenes where many of the young Germans are asked about their knowledge of Auschwitz and other camps, with most of them unaware of the horrors commited there.  Eventually put in charge of making a case against the workers at the camp, his team are able to take some of them to trial.  With only 789 of the approximately 6,500 workers being tried, this was still the biggest prosecution of some of those responsible for the murders of the many people who died in the camps.

It is hard to say if I enjoyed this movie - it was certainly not the most cheery of subjects, but it was interesting and the main character was a charismatic watch. 3/5

1 comment:

John Bellen said...

I'd heard of this movie elsewhere. There is another, similar film, which I think is about this young prosecutor's real-life boss. Most Germans too young to be conscious of what was going on during the war, or who were born after it were not told of what went on. Nazi-hunter Beate Klarsfeld didn't know until she was told by her future husband, a Frenchman. This movie sounds pretty straightforward an account.