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Dashiell's
Flicks: |
Sophie
Scholl:
Written by Fred Breinersdorfer and directed by Marc Rothemund, the picture is based on the actual interrogation and trial records, and is blessed with a terrific performance by Julia Jentsch in the role of Sophie. This intense and subtly nuanced actress conveys a compelling mixture of firm idealism, intellect, and vulnerability. The achievement is more difficult than it may seem--Jentsch reveals Sophie's humanity as an essential element of her bravery. The character does not seem like an allegory or an ideal. We can identify with her, and this makes the agony of her situation more intense. It's clear that this young woman is afraid--and who wouldn't be?--but her commitment to the "idea" of the White Rose keeps her from buckling beneath the inhuman pressure of the totalitarian state. The balancing act between her fear, and the limitations of her youth, and the need to resist an evil that only a few within her society can see as such, constitutes the inward struggle underlying the film's drama of extraordinary true events.
This is a very tense movie, recreating the jittery suspense one must feel living in a society where speaking out can mean imprisonment, torture, and death. The film's latter part, involving Sophie's trial and execution, improves on the first half's somewhat simple structure, becoming a more personal meditation on courage and faith in the face of incredible odds. As skillful as Rothemund manages to be within his modest means, Jentsch's stunning work takes the film to quite another, sublime level. Would you be as courageous as Sophie in similar circumstances? Would you risk your life, especially at that young age, and then stand up to your accusers as she did? In our fantasies we'd like to think so, but it's a tribute to the film's portrayal of real-life heroism that it provokes some serious self-doubt. ©2006 Chris Dashiell |
How
to play a hero? The iconic heroes and heroines we are used
to watching in the movies--confident, fearless, triumphant--have
obscured our ability to understand and perceive the actual
courage of real people. The kind of heroism that risks everything
for the sake of freedom, seems almost unbelievable. Consider,
for instance, the case of Sophie Scholl, a 21-year-old university
student in Munich who in 1942 helped launch, with the help
of her brother Hans and some other young people, an underground
anti-Nazi group called The White Rose. They secretly printed,
mailed and distributed leaflets denouncing Hitler's crimes
and calling for an end to his regime and the war. In 1943,
Sophie and Hans were caught, and this is the subject of a
new film from Germany called Sophie Scholl: the
Final Days. 
At the story's center is a gripping cat-and-mouse game between Sophie and a Gestapo interrogator played by Gerald Alexander Held. At first, she manages to parry his questions with a quick wit and nerves of steel, but when evidence found in Hans's desk leads to his confession, she admits her involvement proudly and then tries her utmost to shield her other friends from capture. Eventually their dialogue takes on the heightened tone of a debate between the Nazi world view and a profoundly moral and spiritual stance.