I've always been very interested in WWII and everything that has something to do with it. Of course I know about the fact that the Vatican's role in this war was, to say the least, quite dubious. But what surprises me is that it is quite difficult to find information about the role of the Roman-Catholic church during the war, let alone to find a movie based on these facts. For as far as I know, there is only one, this one...
"Amen" tells us the story of Kurt Gerstein, a brilliant German chemist who is recruited into the SS during the first years of the Second World War. In his function of sanitation engineer, he travels to Eastern Europe, where he is sent to supervise the water purification for the German army. But soon he is confronted with the horrors of the death camps and is asked to help with the eradication of the 'virmin infested' areas behind the front lines. He develops Zyklon B, which will be used to kill all the Jews, Gipsies, mental patients,..., although he believes it is used against rats and insects. When he finds out the truth, he seeks contact with the Catholic church, but is send away. However, a young Jesuit believes him and helps him by bringing the news to the Pope...
Even though not everything in this movie is true (the characters for instance have been made up by the writer), the movie has still a feeling of historical accuracy. This is because, even though they don't actually show a date, you'll always be able to situate every scene if you know anything about what happened during the war. The people in the movie talk about certain events that happened in the war, for instance the fall of Stalingrad, and this helps you to situate it all.
There might never have existed one priest who was able to go directly to the Pope and probably the remorseful SS-officer never existed either, but that doesn't mean the story isn't any good. It shows that not every German was so hateful that he didn't mind that so many people were killed, but also that even though some priests saved a lot of people, the Catholic church on itself, never really gave a statement about their feelings. They didn't explicitly condemn Hitler by saying that what he did was wrong.
Even though I must say that it is an interesting movie, I can't say that it fully convinced me. There were just a few things too many that bothered me. For instance, the language. Why does everybody speak English in this movie (sometimes with bad accents)? They used German actors, let them speak German than... But the language wasn't the only thing that bothered me. The entire movie didn't exactly feel like it was made with a big budget. It sometimes felt a bit too amateurish. Nevertheless this is still a good movie, that should be seen, not only by the people who are interested in everything that happened during the Second World War, but also by all other people who think that religion is always right and incapable of failing... I give it a 7/10, perhaps even a 7.5/10
"Amen" tells us the story of Kurt Gerstein, a brilliant German chemist who is recruited into the SS during the first years of the Second World War. In his function of sanitation engineer, he travels to Eastern Europe, where he is sent to supervise the water purification for the German army. But soon he is confronted with the horrors of the death camps and is asked to help with the eradication of the 'virmin infested' areas behind the front lines. He develops Zyklon B, which will be used to kill all the Jews, Gipsies, mental patients,..., although he believes it is used against rats and insects. When he finds out the truth, he seeks contact with the Catholic church, but is send away. However, a young Jesuit believes him and helps him by bringing the news to the Pope...
Even though not everything in this movie is true (the characters for instance have been made up by the writer), the movie has still a feeling of historical accuracy. This is because, even though they don't actually show a date, you'll always be able to situate every scene if you know anything about what happened during the war. The people in the movie talk about certain events that happened in the war, for instance the fall of Stalingrad, and this helps you to situate it all.
There might never have existed one priest who was able to go directly to the Pope and probably the remorseful SS-officer never existed either, but that doesn't mean the story isn't any good. It shows that not every German was so hateful that he didn't mind that so many people were killed, but also that even though some priests saved a lot of people, the Catholic church on itself, never really gave a statement about their feelings. They didn't explicitly condemn Hitler by saying that what he did was wrong.
Even though I must say that it is an interesting movie, I can't say that it fully convinced me. There were just a few things too many that bothered me. For instance, the language. Why does everybody speak English in this movie (sometimes with bad accents)? They used German actors, let them speak German than... But the language wasn't the only thing that bothered me. The entire movie didn't exactly feel like it was made with a big budget. It sometimes felt a bit too amateurish. Nevertheless this is still a good movie, that should be seen, not only by the people who are interested in everything that happened during the Second World War, but also by all other people who think that religion is always right and incapable of failing... I give it a 7/10, perhaps even a 7.5/10